A L E X A N D E R G E R A R D

AN ESSAY ON GENIUS

1 7 7 4

EDITED BY

B E R N H A R D FABIAN

WILHELM FINK VERLAG M Ü N C H E N

INTRODUCTION

I

"This is one of the most entertaining works we have lately met with. The design is new; the subject is curious and interesting; the investigation is pursued with great accuracy and penetration; and the expression is per-spicuous and elegant. On these grounds, we venture to promise much pleasure from this work to sudi readers as have learned to think." This eulogy set the tone for a lengthy article in the Monthly Review for January, 1775.1 The book which was accorded such unrestrained praise had, with a London and Edinburgh imprint, appeared in September of the preceding year.2 It bore the title An Essay on Genius, and came from the pen of Alexander Gerard, professor in King's College, Aberdeen.

To the "thinking" reader whom the reviewer had in mind, Gerard's can hardly have been an unfamiliar name. Some fifteen years before, he had made a reputation as an aesthetician with An Essay on Taste, published in 1759. The work had been awarded "an honorary premium, being a gold medal with a suitable device and inscription" by the "Select Society of Edinburgh for the encouragement of Arts, Sciences, Manufactures, and Agri-culture". In itself this was not a high distinction, since "silver medals with a proper device and inscription" were proposed for "the best printed and most correct Book", the "best imitation of English Blankets", and the "best hogs-head of Strong Ale".3 The real reward lay in the fact that a second and third edition were called for,4 and that translations appeared in France and Germany.5 An Essay on Taste pervasively established itself as one of those

1 LII (1775), 1—9; for further reviews see Appendix B, p. 458. 2 Gentleman's Magazine, XLIV (1774), 434, 3 "An Account of the Select Society of Edinburgh", Scots Magazine, XVII

(1755), 126—130; see also XX (1758), 43—46. 4 The second (duodecimo) edition appeared in 1764, the third (octavo) edition in

1780. An American edition came out in 1804. The complex physical bibliography of the work has been treated by Walter J. Hippie, Jr., in the introduction (pp. xxiv-xxvii) to his facsimile reprint of the third edition (Gainesville, 1963).

5 The French translation (Essai sur le goût. . .) was published in 1766. In the catalogue of the Bibliothèque Nationale it is listed as octavo, in that of the British Museum as duodecimo. The German translation (Versuch über den Geschmack. . .) appeared also in 1766 ("Breslau und Leipzig, bey Johann Ernst Meyer"). Kayser's Bücherlexikon (I, 2, p. 341) lists another edition ("Breslau: Gosokorsky"). The translation is said to be by Karl Friedrich Flögel, a then well-known writer on aesthetics and philosophy; see J. G. Meusel, Lexikon der vom Jahr 1750 bis 1800 verstorbenen teutschen Schriftsteller, III (Leipzig, 1804), 395 f., and K. H. Jördens, Lexikon deutscher Dichter und Prosaisten, I (Leipzig, 1806), 551—557, with a précis of Gerard's Essay on p. 553.

IX

valuable contribution! to the "science of human nature" which were then, in increaiing numbers, being made from Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

The new work came f rom a man who could look back on a successful career.4 Born in 1728, Gerard rose from comparative obscurity to the chair of divinity in King's College, Aberdeen. At the age of sixteen, he graduated as Master of Arts f rom Marischal College — certainly, as one of his biogra-phers noted, "at a period sufficiently early to entitle him to the character of precocious genius".7 Four years later he was a licensed preacher of the Church of Scotland and, in 1752, he became professor of natural philosophy in Marischal College. When he received his award from the Edinburgh Society he had also distinguished himself as an educational reformer. In his Plan of

Education in the Marischal College and University of Aberdeen (1755) he suggested for his College a modern system along Baconian lines to supplant the old scholastic and pseudo-Aristotelian training. This won him further international recognition. In Germany, where his Essay on Taste was as well received and as highly esteemed as in Britain,8 it was felt that a trans-lation would contribute "viel Nützliches zur Beförderung der Erkenntniß". ' The next step in Gerard's career came in 1760, when he was appointed professor of divinity in Marischal College and also minister of the Greyfriars Church in Aberdeen. Later he resigned both these offices to succeed Lumisden in the theological chair of King's College, in which position he continued till 1795, when, at the age of sixty-seven, he died on his birthday.

In this last period, when Gerard taught divinity at King's, the Essay on

Genius took final shape. The book, as we shall see, was in the making for a long time. The Essay on Taste had been written quickly, but the new work apparently required more extensive reading and more probing thinking. Though some theological writings appeared after it, the Essay on Genius was the crowning achievement of a man who proceeded "in omnigena doctrina comparanda incredibili industria [et] diligentia singulari".10 As his contem-poraries saw him, Gerard was not so much a dazzling genius as a clear and orderly mind — "langsam am Stecken und Stabe der Erfahrung fortschrei-tend", to use a phrase of his admirer Kant.11 Though a theoretician of inven-tion, he seemed to lack "the imagination requisite for making discoveries in science". His knowledge appeared "the reward of labour", and his attain-

6 For biographical accounts, see especially DNB, VII, 1089—1090, and Cham-bers's Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen (ed. London, 1869), II, 96—98.

7 Chambers, op. cit., p. 96. 8 The Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek, for instance, praised the book highly.

"Noch nie ist nach den ersten Gründen des Geschmacks so tiefsinnig geforscht wor-den, als von diesem Verfasser." (VII, 2, 1768, p. 276).

9 Alexander Gerards Gedanken von der Ordnung der Philosophischen Wissen-schaften. . . (Riga, 1770), p. 4.

10 Epitaph, quoted from William Kennedy, Annals of Aberdeen. . . (London, 1818), II, 349.

11 Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht, § 58.

XXXVIII

mentä were considered "solid rather than brilliant".12 But these were thought

minor limitations. Gerard was known for his remarkably wide range of

interests — from natural philosophy to theology and literary criticism —

and for his capability, by intense study, "of becoming master of almost any

subject". Even if he did not show "any remarkable vigour of mind" he still

had "great rectitude of judgement". All these qualities, major and minor, went

into the Essay on Genius. The result of almost two decades of reading and

thinking, the book was to become the sum and substance of what, about 1770,

could be said on the vexing question of the nature of genius: an achievement,

like all of Gerard's work, perhaps more solid than brilliant, but certainly the

best-considered and most carefully wrought contribution to the literature on

a subject which engaged the attention of practically the whole period f rom

1750 to 1800.

II

Gerard's Essay on Genius would seem to be a comparative late-comer in the efflorescence of works on genius during the seventeen-fifties and seventeen-sixties. In date of publication it was preceded by William Sharpe's Disser-

tation on Genius (1755), Edward Young's Conjectures on Original Composi-

tion (1759), William Duff 's Essay on Original Genius, and Its Various Modes

of Exertion in Philosophy and the Fine Arts (1767), and James Beanie's The

Minstrel; or, The Progress of Genius (1771; 1774) — to name but the more prominent titles. Thus, among the heralds of original genius, Gerard would seem to have raised his voice at a moment when the historically important pronouncements had already been made and when it had become difficult to say something novel on a new phenomenon. This may be true, if the history of the concept is traced in terms of publication dates. However, in his preface Gerard stated that "the first part [was] composed, and some progress made in the second part, so long ago as the year 1758".13 This, if true, would make him one of the earliest writers on the subject and almost reverse the traditional history of the Genielehre. For wha t might be consider-ed as a summary of established doctrines when written in or shortly before 1774 must appear as new and "original" if written or at least conceived in the seventeen-sixties or even in the late seventeen-fifties. Gerard would then deserve a different place among these pioneer thinkers and, perhaps, stand out as their precursor.

12 From the "opinion of Dr. Gerard's intellectual powers" in the Encyclopedia Britannica, Supplement to the Third Edition (Edinburgh, 1801), 697—701. G. D. Henderson draws attention to the fact that "the adjective whidi his admirers ap-plied to his work was 'ingenious'.'' "A Member of the Wise Club", Aberdeen Univer-sity Review, X X I V (1936-1937) , 5.

13 Essay on Genius, p. iii.

XXXIX

l'ommmcly the genesis of the Essay on Genius can be traccd in some detail in the hitherto unpublished minutes of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society.14

With this group Gerard was affiliated for many years, and the Essay on Genius is closely linked with its activities. The Aberdeen philosophers could, and did, follow the growth of Gerard's thought almost month by month, so that the proceedings of their club furnish the clue to the origin and progress of the Essay on Genius. Much of what Gerard had to say found its way into print only after having been subjected to the scrutiny of this handful of men whose "philosophical" interests extended to almost any conceivable subject. Like some other famous members, Gerard regarded their sessions as a trial ground for new ideas.

It was the second Scottish society which furthered Gerard's work.15 If the Essay on Taste owed its existence to the prize proposed by the Edinburgh Society, which thought of itself as a kind of Scottish Academy set up for the express purpose of stimulating the intellectual revival of the North, the Essay on Genius was called forth by the comparatively secluded Aberdeen group. Much smaller than the Edinburgh Society, it was less ambitious, decidedly private in character, and even prone to reticence. But it was extremely lively, and it counted among its members some of the best minds Scotland could then boast of. Over the years this surprisingly homogeneous association ("which the vulgar and uninitiated denominated the Wise Club"u) had, in the words of a friend and admirer of its members, "the happiest effects in awakening and in directing that spirit of philosophical research, which has reflected so much lustre on the north of Scotland".17

The Aberdeen Society was established early in 1758,18 its original members being John Gregory, David Skene, Robert Trail, George Campbell, John

14 The following account is based on the "Original Minutes of the Philosophical Society of Aberdeen", Aberdeen University Library, MS. 539 (by permission of the University Library, King's College, Aberdeen). Portions of the manuscript have been transcribed by various scholars, notably by Martha Jane Cauvel, The Critic, "Blest with a Poet's Fire": Alexander Gerard's Interpretation of Genius, Taste, and Aesthetic Criticism (unpubl. diss. Bryn Mawr College, 1962).

15 See Margaret Lee Wiley, "Gerard and the Scots Societies", University of Texas Studies in English (1940), 132—136.

'6 Works of the Late John Gregory, M. D.: To which is Prefixed an Account of the Life of the Author [by A. F. Tytler] (Edinburgh, 1788), I, 40.

17 William Forbes, An Account of the Life and Writings of James Beattie (Edin-burgh, 1806), I, 35.

18 For accounts of its history see James McCosh, The Scottish Philosophy, Bio-graphical, Expository, Critical, from Hutcheson to Hamilton (London, 1875), Forbes, op. cit., and James Valentine, "A Society of Aberdeen Philosophers One Hundred Years Ago", Macmillan's Magazine, VIII (1863), 436—444. Recent sketches include those by Margaret Lee Wiley (see note 15), Martha Jane Cauvel (see note 14), Lloyd F. Bitzer in his edition of Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric (Car-bondale, 111., 1963), pp. xi-xiii; I have not seen D. D. McElroy, The Literary Clubs and Societies in Eighteenth-Century Scotland (unpubl. diss., 1951—1952, Edinburgh University Library).

XII

Stewart, and Thomas Reid." Though not one of the founding members, Gerard was admitted among the first elected members in March, 1758. Before the first meeting an elaborate body of rules was drawn up, regulating the details of business and pleasure. It provided for an assembly "twice every Month, in the Room appointed for that End, upon the Second & Fourth Wedensdays of the Month". The sessions were to begin "precisely half an Hour after Five" and "Close half an Hour after Eight" (rule 1). During that time the "Entertainment" was expected "not to exceed eighteen pence a Head" (rule 4), and for this money, it was stipulated, "any member may take a Glass at a Bytable when the President is in the Chair, but no Healths shall be drunk during that Time" (rule 3). At any event, the members were to "leave the Meeting Room at ten" (rule 4).

The austerity of these arrangements provided the setting for the meetings, which were held with striking regularity. A continuous record of the sessions is extant from January 12, 1758, to March 12, 1771. As for the manner of proceeding, it was agreed that each meeting "shall begin with a Discourse or Dissertation by the Member who is then to enter upon the Office of Presi-dent, not exceeding half an hour in length, the Subject and Design of it being intimate at a previous Meeting. And if any Member shall fail to give his Discourse or send it in Writing at the time appointed, without a Reasonable Excuse, the President being Judge, he shall forfeit half a Crown for the Use of the Society" (rule 13). A further agreement was that "after the Discourse is read any Member in his Order shall have access to make his Observations in a free but candid and friendly Manner. But Criticisms upon Style, Pronounciation, or Composition are to be avoided as Forreign to the Design of the Society" (rule 14).

Hearing a discourse and subjecting it to expert criticism was, however, not the only object of these gatherings. The next rule made provision for another activity: "After the Observations on the Discourse are finished, or when there is no Discourse as soon as the Meeting is Constitute, the President may Propose some Question which he thinks proper for the Consideration of the Society, and if one third of the Meeting consent, it shall be entred into a Book in Order to be discussed at some future Meeting" (rule 15). Generous as this regulation appears, the scope of the subject-matter was definitely limited. Rule 17 stated that "the Subject of the Discourses and Questions shall be Philosophical, all Grammatical, Historical, and Philological Discus-sions being conceived to be forreign to the Design of this Society".

Genius was among the early "Questions" proposed for discussion. It is listed as number 18 in the extant list (the total being 126) and was first suggested by John Farquhar, a divine, who was admitted with Gerard, at the meeting of April 22, 1758.20 As entered by the secretary it reads: "In the

19 For the respective biographies, see DNB. 20 John Farquhar is the least known of the members. He was a minister at Nigg.

His sermons were edited after his death by George Campbell and Alexander Gerard

XXXVIII XXXIX

Perfection of w h a t Faculty docs Genius consist? Or if in a Combination of

Faculties, what arc they?" It is di f f icult to determine whether this gave a

hint to Gerard or whether he had already in mind a discourse on genius when

he was asked to lecture.2 1 At any rate, the question he himself contributed does

not anticipate his future topic: " W h a t are the Proper Subjects of Demon-

strative Reasoning?" When Farquhar's question was due for discussion in

November, 1758, it was recorded that "the 18 Question was passed over

as Mr. Gerard had taken it for the Subject of his last Discourse". The list

itself contains a note to the same effect: the question was "superceded".

Gerard's f irst lecture was on "The Nature and Var iety ' s of Genius". As

the Society's minutes contain nothing beyond this bare statement, it would

be idle to speculate about the contents of the discourse.2 2 The title implies a

general survey of the subject, and the ta lk would appear to have included

materials which later found their w a y into Part I (headed "Of the Nature of

Genius") and Part II (called "Of the general Sources of the Varieties of

Genius"). In v iew of the fact that Gerard was to direct his attention to the

imagination as the decisive criterion of genius a second discourse, given by

John Farquhar only one session later, should not be overlooked. It was called

"Some Observations on the Imagination" (August 23, 1758). Again, nothing

is known about the contents of Farquhar's lecture. But one feels inclined to

assume some sort of relation between the views advanced by Farquhar and

by Gerard. That Farquhar supplied Gerard with certain basic concepts and

approaches is suggested by the Essay on Genius itself. Farquhar's original

perspective — that genius may be related to one or several faculties of the

mind — is retained in sudi chapter headings as that of Part I, Section ii: " T o

what Faculty of the Mind, Genius properly belongs."

A f t e r one further discourse, in w h i d i he "intended to prosecute his former

Subject of Imagination" (May 30, 1759), John Farquhar turned to other

topics, leaving the exploration of the "Province and Criterion of Genius"

and appeared early in the 1770's: Sermons on Various Subjects, Second edition (London, 1773). A third and fourth edition came out in 1778 and 1792. The editors introduction concludes with the statement: "A good judge will not be at a loss to discern in the preacher an eminent clearness of apprehension, correctness ot taste, a lively imagination, and delicate sensibility to all the finest feelings of whidi human

nature is susceptible" (1773, I, v). j 21 In the "Advertisement" to the Essay on Genius Gerard stated that he entered

on that investigation [of genius] immediately after finishing his former work [the

Essay on Taste]' (p. iii). . , , , Ώ , " The original members had concurred that "the Society shall have three Books,

one to Record the Discourses, wherein every Discourse shall be recorded unless for special Reasons the Author desire the Contrary, and every Member shall record or Cause record his own Discourse. Another Book shall be kept for the Questions and a third for the Rules and Minutes of the Society and Annual Accounts of the Societys Money" (rule 16). Of these, only the second and the third are still available (MS. 539). The highly important first book does unfortunately not seem to survive except for certain fragments.

XXII

to Gerard. From the end of 1758 onwards it was Gerard's exclusive subject.

Several members of the Society gave a series of discourses on one topic, but

Gerard was the only speaker to confine himself to a single f ield of inquiry.

His next discourse w a s in May, 1759, but nothing is recorded about its title

(May 8). In the subsequent address, delivered in November, he " w a s to give

a Discourse. . . in Continuation of his former Subject upon Genius" (October

16, 1759). Obviously, e v e r y b o d y had by now accepted genius as the habitual

subject with Gerard. The entries become tantalizingly short. In May, 1760,

there seems to have been another talk (January 22, 1760), and in January of

the fol lowing year Gerard again "designed to continue his former subject"

(December 9, 1760).

The year 1761 w a s apparently a di f f icul t one. Gerard's w o r k made slow

progress. An abstract which he had agreed to make of the debate on the

relation of the ideas of cause and effect was, w i t h fat iguing monotony, report-

ed "not ready" for months and months. Since this question comes under

the heading "association of ideas", the delay, perhaps, reflects Gerard's

continued struggle wi th a problem which also had a bearing on the Essay on

Genius. Moreover, Gerard desired (on August 11, 1761) "a change of the

month in which he was to discourse; as the month of May was inconvenient

for him". The speech he gave in December, 1761, was once more "in con-

tinuation of his former discourses on Genius" (November 24), but this time

the abstract was not immediately committed to the "book of discourses";

instead, "the inserting of it was delayed at his desire, in regard the subject

was not f inished" (December 8). This shows the book in progress, and Gerard

struggling with ideas. Seldom did a member of the Society decline entering

an abstract for the same reason. The diff iculties seem to have lasted till 1764, if the minutes can be inter-

preted that w a y . 2 3 The abstract of the debate was not finally inserted into

the book until 1765, though the rough dra f t of this "piece of service out of

his turn" was ready by November 9, 1762. T w o sessions later, he w a s to

discourse, as the standard phrase was, "in continuation of his former subject"

(November 23), but this and the preceding lecture obviously remained under

revision for several months. In January, 1763, Gerard w a s elected President

of the Society, af ter the off ice had become an annually rotating one. W h e n

he resigned, the minutes are at long last more copious: "Dr . Gerrard in con-

formity to the laudable custom already introduced, read a discourse at leav-

ing the chair, on the manner in which association is influenced by the causes

of the passions" (January 10, 1764). Again, "the meeting agreed to delay the

inserting this discourse for the reason suggested by the Dr. at reading his last

discourse". W h a t this reason was remains unknown. The former discourse

had been given a year before. It was "upon the effect to the passions on the

associations of our ideas" (December 13, 1763), and then as later Gerard

23 For Gerard's own account of his difficulties, see below, pp. iiif.

X V

"hav ing desired that the inserting of his discourse might be de layed for a

reason communicated to the society, the said desire w a s agreed to".

Though these discourses have at f irst sight nothing to do with genius, they

still form part of Gerard's inquiry into "the general Sources of the Varieties

of Genius". Section iii of Part II treats "Of the Influence of the Passions on

Association". This is the f irst time that one of Gerard's lectures is identical in

topic with a chapter of the published book. Gerard, then, in conformity with

his statement in the "Advert isement", treated Part I and portions of Part II

in 1758. The intricate psychological analysis of genius fo l lowed in 1763 and

1764, after some struggle wi th an unruly and recalcitrant subject. Three

lectures, including that of October 23, 1764, were condensed into less than

for ty pages of the book. O n l y t w o months later, in December, 1764, "Dr .

Gerard read his discourse on the principles of association". This was to

become the subsequent Section iv of Part II. Gerard was on his w a y — but

the end was not yet in sight. The meeting agreed, again in a standard phrase,

"to delay the inserting it, untili the subject is finished" (December 11). A last

inference is, perhaps, permitted. Gerard may have thought that his reflections

on genius had reached a publishable state. At any rate, Thomas Reid w a s the

only member before Gerard to decline inserting abstracts — "in regard he

proposed soon to send it to the press along with the other discourses which

he had read before the society" (October 11, 1762).

From 1764 onwards Gerard w a s one of the most regular and punctual

contributors to the discourses. H a v i n g found "the month of December

inconvenient for his discoursing" (March 12, 1765), he lectured, on Septem-

ber 10, 1765, in "Continuation of his former Subject, upon Genius" (August

13, 1765). The talk was to be fo l lowed by another before being committed

to the book of discourses (September 10, 1765). This was given in October,

1766, and the entries in the book were made accordingly. W i t h exasperating

shortness the minutes list a new lecture ("in continuation of the former") for

September, 1767; it must have been on some topic which reappeared between

Sections ν and ix of Part II of the Essay, for on September 13, 1768, there

came another lecture which corresponds to the final Section x: " O n the

varieties of Judgement & their influence on Genius". Thus the contents of

roughly the f i rs t three hundred pages of the published w o r k had been com-

municated to the Society by 1768. In the next year Gerard apparently gave

t w o discourses, one in September and another on November 14, 1769, "on

the kinds of genius". This is the title of Part III. Most probably he gave, as

he had done in his very first ta lk, a survey of the subject, whid i was to be

fo l lowed by a more detailed treatment of individual topics.

Concurrently wi th his lectures Gerard added t w o more questions to the

Society's list of topics for debates. They suggest not only his aesthetic con-

cerns at the time but also the direction his thought w a s taking. In January,

1768, he desired to know "Whether Poetry can be justly reckoned an imita-

X V I

tivc art; & il' it can, in what rcHpcci»?"'4 Hi« own answer to this problem,

which is α sort of refinement upon the Aristotelian position, was given in an

appendix to the third edition of his Essay on Taste (1780). The other question

is more directly related to the Essay on Genius and foreshadows significant

trends in later eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century critical thought on

the factors influencing the growth of genius. As entered on December 12,

1769, it reads: "Whether any account can be given of the causes, w h y great

Geniuses have arisen at the periods which have been most remarkable for

them, and w h y they have frequently arisen in clusters?" 2 5 Obvious ly the

debates of the Society were to supplement Gerard's lectures in which he

attempted a systematic analysis of what constituted genius, but avoided a

discussion of whence and w h y genius arose. H o w he wanted to correlate the

t w o aspects is once again a matter for speculation. The regular minutes of the

proceedings break off in 1771 after recording another lecture in November,

1770. Further discourses were given on November 12, 1771 ("a continuation

of his former Discourses"), and onNovember 10,1772.2 6 No notes are preserv-

ed for the next year, so that there is no w a y of ascertaining whether Gerard

"continued" or finished his subject after " i t was proposed that the present

situation of the Club should be considered" in v iew of the frequent absence

of members f rom meetings and the delay in preparing abstracts (December,

1772; January 12, 1773). At any rate, Gerard had nearly reached his goal:

the Essay on Genius was published in 1774.

I l l

This account of its genesis places the Essay on Genius in proper perspective.

The book was not, as might be supposed, written with an eye on every recent

development in aesthetics and l i terary criticism. From beginning to end it

was the result of independent labour, stimulated no doubt by the comments

of discerning friends, yet uninfluenced by active communication with other

writers on the same subject. The absence of any reference to similar w o r k s

has become a standard observation on the part of modern critics, and has

commonly been seen as detracting f rom Gerard's merits. The implication

a lways is that Gerard fai led in one of the elementary duties of a scholar: to

keep abreast w i t h recent publications. Against this charge Gerard must be

defended. He w a s neither negligent nor did he lag behind. The truth is that

he developed the important concepts by himself (which included discussion

24 N o . 94. « No." 104. On February 26, 1771, Gerard suggested another topic: " W h e t h e r

nat ional characters depend upon phys ica l or moral causes, or whether t h e y are

inf luenced by b o t h " (no. 114).

X X I I

in the Aberdeen Society) and that lie held the most "advanced" position amoiiR the contemporary analysts of genius.

The claim to priority is one which has to be settled especially between Gerard and William Duff, whose Essay on Original Genius came out seven years earlier. Duff, a minister, had then just been transferred f rom Glen-bucket to Peterculter, both in Aberdeenshire.27 Thus the two men lived in close vicinity and may even be supposed to have met. On the important aspects of the problem of genius they held views of such striking similarity that one of them would seem to have influenced the other, and at first sight Gerard may appear to have learned f rom Duff. The available evidence, however, points in the other direction. When Duff wrote his treatise, Gerard's Essay on Taste containing a most significant chapter, called "Of the Connexion of Taste with Genius",28 had been available for several years and with it certain seminal ideas that were to reappear in Duff 's and Gerard's essays. As early as 1759, Gerard had declared that the imagination was of fundamental and supreme importance in the psychological make-up of genius. According to his view, a lively and vigorous imagination characteriz-ed the man of genius as well as the man of taste. Taste, he held, "though itself a species of sensation, is, in respect of its principles, justly reduced to imagination". On the other hand, he regarded taste "as an essential part, or as a necessary attendant of genius". And, finally, he was convinced that "the first and leading quality of genius is invention, which consists in a great extent and comprehensiveness of imagination, in a readiness of associating the remotest ideas that are any way related".2 '

Even a casual perusal of Duff 's Essay shows that its whole argument re-volves precisely around these ideas. "Imagination and Taste," Duff pointed out, were "two material ingredients in the composition of Genius. The former we have proved to be the most essential ingredient, without which Genius cannot exist; and that the latter is indispensably necessary to render its productions Elegant und Correct".30 Such a pronouncement could be made by anybody who so rearranged Gerard's ideas as to make genius, instead of taste, the central concept. When Duff offered this explanation of genius Gerard, as is indicated by the Minutes, had arrived at far more subtle insights. By 1767, he had finished most of Part II of the Essay on Genius, which in the ingenuity of its deductions must have seemed, and indeed was, vastly superior to the assertions of Duff . Apart from a strongly primitivistic bias

26 Some additional minutes are preserved on separate sheets. These do not seem to have formed part of the extant book.

27 See DNB, VI, 131f. 28 In view of Gerard's statement in the "Advertisement" (see p. iii), this diapter

is here treated as an integral part of Gerard's analysis of genius. 29 Essay on Taste, ed. Walter J. Hippie, Jr., pp. 144, 163. Hero and elsewhere the

text of 1780 is essentially the same as that of 1759. 30 Essay on Original Genius, ed. John L. Mahoney (Gainesville, 1964), pp. 63f.

XXXVIII

Gerard could not have learned anything from Duff which he did not already know. Gerard, who elaborately documented his study, would have been too scrupulous not to acknowledge any debt. But there was nothing to acknowl-edge on his part.3 '

Edward Young's possible claim to notice in the Essay on Genius can even more readily be dismissed. His was not, in the strict sense of the word, a study of genius at all. The Conjectures were not so much an explanation of what genius was and how genius worked as a declaration of intellectual independence. To the contemporary reader they must have represented a late phase of the controversy over the ancients and moderns rather than an early stage of the inquiry into those "principles and faculties of human nature" which constituted genius. True, Young's letter reflected new interests and a change of emphasis; its foremost concern, however, was not to under-stand the geniuses of the past, but to call for th the geniuses of the future, to promise a new life to letters, and to sketch a vision of the graces and glories to come. H o w little Young had to offer by way of penetrating analysis can perhaps be seen f rom the slight impression which the tract made on Johnson, who was obviously not at all struck by the novelty of its ideas.32 Were it not for Young's glowing enthusiasm, which kindled the intellectual fire of a new generation, especially in Germany, one might, for the substance of the argu-ment, turn to Fitzosborne's Letters on Several Subjects of 1748.33 There was not only a great diversity of intention between Gerard and Young but also a decisive lag on the par t of Young, who still held some ideas of the seventeen-forties, while Gerard's were those of the seventeen-sixties. Besides, the Essay

on Taste with its section on genius had been submitted to the Edinburgh Society long before the appearance of the Conjectures.34 Young, then, could contribute nothing to the formation of the Essay on Genius.

Apart from this priority Gerard's approach itself was superior. As the Minutes disclose, he and his friends handled their subjects in a truly "philo-sophical" spirit. The question from which Gerard started was posed in terms as neutral as possible, and f rom the Essay on Genius it can be seen that Gerard conducted his inquiry without preconceived ideas. While other writers on genius took a partisan point of view — Young's slighting refer-ences to Swift may serve as an example —he neither held partial opinions nor advocated one-sided doctrines. He explained rather than proclaimed. He had

31 Duff in turn warned the reader not to expect "originality" everywhere in his book: "A casual coincidence of sentiment will sometimes happen, where not the least imitation was intended" (p. xii).

32 "Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides," James Boswell, Life of Johnson, ed. George Birkbeck Hill, V (Oxford, 1964), 269. See however, Samuel Richardson's letter of May 24, 1759, in Monthly Magazine, XL VII (1819), 135.

33 "Sir Thomas Fitzosborne", Letters on Several Subjects (London, 1748), pp. 5—8 (Letter II).

34 On the genesis of the Conjectures, see especially Alan D. McKillop, "Richard-son, Young, and the ConjecturesModern Philology, XXII (1925), 391—404.

XXXIX

no complaint! to make about the scarcity of contemporary geniuses, no edict to issue for the future, no favour to bestow upon schools and movements, and no questions to raise about the admission of particular authors to the ranks of genius. He was not involved in the controversy over the ancients and moderns. He did not feel oppressed, like Young, by the splendour of the ancients, nor did he lament the inferiority of the moderns. Above all, he kept clear of the contemporary worship of the inspired bardic poet. Even if he wanted to discover why great geniuses had arisen at certain periods he did not declare, like Duff, "that original Poetic Genius will in general be dis-played in its utmost vigour in the early and uncultivated periods of Society, which are particularly favourable to it; and that it will seldom appear in a very high degree in cultivated life".35 Gerard's was not the narrow "en-thusiastic" view of genius which figured so prominently in his time.36 Rather, he developed a broad concept of genius, which embraced ancient and modern genius, included diverse kinds of genius, and comprehended whatever mani-festations of it were visible to an acute observer.

In defining his notion of genius Gerard was the first to arrive at a theory with distinctively modern features. The term genius, as is well known, was at the time quickly losing that older, traditional meaning which it had carried for the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.37 Genius was no longer, as it still was for Nathan Bailey, "a Man's Nature, Fancy, or Inclination",38

but came to denote, beyond talent, that superior and, indeed, unique mental power which the word in its modern acceptation suggests. The significant redefinition was the work of the seventeen-fifties and seventeen-sixties, and every writer on the subject contributed in some measure to it. The process, however, was a complex one, and each writer, including Young and Duff, was "progressive" in different ways. Only with Gerard does one get the impression that the borderline has been crossed at all decisive points.

Gerard's concept of "a man endowed with superior faculties", as Johnson defined genius in 1755,39 should first of all be seen against the background of William Sharpe's Dissertation upon Genius, which appeared in the same year

135 Op. cit., p. xviii. 36 Among others shared by his protégé James Beattie. 37 Apart from the standard work by M. H. Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp:

Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition (New York, 1953), the best general account is still Paul Kaufmann, "Heralds of Original Genius", Essays in Memory of Barrett Wendell (Cambridge, Mass., 1926), pp. 191—217, to be supplemented by R. S. Crane's remarks in Philological Quarterly, VI (1927), 168—169, by Logan Pearsall Smith, "Four Romantic Words", in: Words and Idioms: Studies in the English Language (ed. London, 1957), pp. 95—114, and by Margaret Lee Wiley, "Genius: A Problem in Definition", Texas Studies in English, no. 16 (1936), 77—83. Earlier phases in France are studied by Hubert Sommer, "A propos du mot 'génie'", Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie, LXVI (1950), 170—201.

38 Universal Etymological English Dictionary (London, 1721). 39 Dictionary, s. v. genius.

XXXVIII

as Johnson's Dictionary.40 Conveniently lor the historian, Sharpe marks the initial phase in the study of genius. He was not aware of any predecessor in the field and thought of his inquiry as "a disquisition upon so novel and extraordinary a subject". Like Young and Gerard after him, he felt — not-withstanding such early inquiries as Addison's Spectator no. 160 — that he was treating the subject extensively for the first time. Conveniently, too, Sharpe's sole intention was that of exploding a doctrine which he considered as detrimental to a true understanding of genius: the assumption that genius was innate. Advocating an older concept of genius as mental power in gener-al, Sharpe held that there were, " degrees of distinction herein very observable", and this observation led him to deny that genius was a gift of nature at all. "The point I have in view," he emphatically declared, "is, to prove, that Genius, or Taste, is not the result of simple nature, not the effect of any cause exclusive of human assistance, and the vicissitudes of life; but the effect of acquisition in general."

This idea, so strongly opposed by Sharpe, was to become the central tenet in the developing philosophy of genius. In fact, both in England and in France the Genielehre proceeded from the assumption that genius was definite-ly the product of "simple nature". An author, therefore, may be said to qualify as a new theoretician of genius in proportion as he was anti-Sharpean or, if he was a Frenchman, anti-Helvétian.41 No direct reply was needed, of course, and indeed was hardly ever made. But the position had to be succinct-ly stated, and to Gerard goes the credit for having set forth this axiom for the first time. Only two or three years after Sharpe's Dissertation upon Genius he jotted down in his early reflexions on taste and genius: "Diligence and aquired abilities may assist or improve genius: but a fine imagination alone can produce it."42 This was, in terms as unobtrusive as possible, the decisive move towards the recognition of genius as a given phenomenon. Not that Gerard considered it as something incomprehensible. He was convinced that it could be explained and should be inquired into — a convic-tion that gave his Essay on Genius its raison d'être. But he stated incontest-ably that genius was an irreducible "principle" of human nature, something that could not be resolved into the components of an ordinary mind, and something that could neither be learned nor acquired.

The incidental nature of Gerard's statement should not obscure its im-portance. It is the cornerstone upon which the Essay on Genius rests. That Gerard felt no necessity to refute the Sharpean position at any length is of

40 The full title of this rare book is: A Dissertation upon Genius: Or, an Attempt to shew, That the Instances of Distinction, and Degrees of Superiority in the human Genius are not, fundamentally, the Result of Nature, but the Effect of Acquisition (London, 1755). The author was Curate of Leaden Rooding, Essex. Quotations are from pp. 1 and 6.

41 For the French developments, see Herbert Dieckmann, "Diderot's Conception of Genius", journal of the History of Ideas, II (1941), 151—182.

42 Op. cit., p. 165.

XXXIX

little moment. The issue was alive when the Es say on Taste was written: but there it was only of marginal interest. By 1774, however, it had lost much of its vitality, for Gerard's early view had come to be generally accept-ed. He could confine himself to a disparaging remark on those ("even some-times judicious writers") who confounded genius "with mere capacity".43

Readers conversant with the subject would, in coming across this passage, probably recall that Duff had already elaborated upon Gerard's early note.44

Only in Germany, where the debate was still timely and current in the late seventeen-seventies, can an extended treatment of the question be traced in Jacob Friedrich Abel's lecture before the Military Academy in Stuttgart. His Rede über das Genie was wholly devoted to the question: "Werden große Geister geboren oder erzogen und welches sind die Merkmale dersel-bigen?"45

Gerard's advanced position is perhaps best revealed in contrast to that of Young, who presented, in his Conjectures, that well-known though awkward distinction between "infantine" and "adult" genius. Of these, only the latter was a genius in the proper sense of the word, while the former, exemplified by Swift, rather resembled the man of capacity in that he needed learning as his "Nurse, and Tutor".46 This resumed a point made by Addison about half a century earlier, yet it added practically nothing to the emerging new concept.47 Young, it is true, was all in favour of "adul t" genius, but his vision was still blurred by contemporary issues, and his concept had not attained maturity. Gerard's, however, was, to adapt Young's words, an "adult" concept, despite its rudimentary outline. It was neither tentative nor in any respect derivative.

By acknowledging the innateness of genius, Gerard avoided what was perhaps the most obvious pitfall in the contemporary analysis of genius. But there were other dangers threatening from the opposite direction. While the Sharpean theoreticians, with ill-directed pedagogical ambitions, thought their task easier than it actually was, another group tended to overrate the difficulties. For them genius was something superhuman, and they knelt in self-abasement before the shrines of a quasi-divinity, murmuring ritualistic formulas instead of uttering critical pronouncements. "With regard to the Moral world, Conscience, with regard to the Intellectual, Genius, is that God within," said Young, quoting f rom Seneca: "Sacer nobis inest Deus", and adding f rom Cicero: "Nemo unquam vir magnus fuit, sine aliquo afflatu

Divino"·48 Or , to give another example f rom John Gilbert Cooper, who

43 See below, pp. 7 and 35. 44 See Duff, op. cit., pp. 3ff. 45 In his new edition (Marbach a. N., 1955), Walter Müller-Seidel points out

several connections with Gerard. 46 (London, 1759), pp. 31, 32. 47 See Spectator, 160. « Op. cit., pp. 30f., 27. Elsewhere Young writes: "Genius has ever been supposed

to partake of something Divine." (p. 27).

XXII

published his Letters concerning Taste in the same year as Sharpc his Disser-

tation: "By poetical Genius, 1 don't mean the nicer talent of making Verses,

but that glorious Enthusiasm of Soul, that fine Frenzy, as Shakespear calls it, rolling from Heaven to Earth, from Earth to Heaven, which, like an able Magician, can bring every Object of the Creation in any Shape whatever before the Reader's Eyes."49

Due to its historical aftermath in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, this sort of Geniekult, a crude revival of the old inspirational view of the poet,50 has frequently passed for the genuine Genielehre. But it should not be overlooked that such a ceremonial reverence of the enthusiastic state of mind (with its concomitant primitivism) precluded a satisfactory inquiry into the nature of genius. If Sharpe's view resulted in a pedagogical fallacy, the religion of genius, as practised by Young and others, was likely to produce a theological fallacy. It substituted a celebration of the divine origin of genius for a philosophical theory based on observable data.

Ever since ancient aesthetic theory, the production of a work of art had been attributed to some combination of "nature" and "art", the first term designating the creative endowment of the artist, the second a collective body of learning independent of the individual creative effort. Conventionally, all neoclassical theories stressed the element of "art" , while relegating, with due modesty, the element of "nature" to the sphere of the Je-ne-sais-quoi.

When Young and others called for originality, they emphasized the element of "nature" by displacing that of "ar t" from the distinguished position it had held. Despite the apparent novelty of their propositions, they thought within the traditional frame of reference. They merely reversed the order of the two elements so radically as to make no-learning almost a prerequisite of the genuine creative achievement. In the process the old Je-ne-sais-quoi assumed the name of genius. Thus genius continued to be something mysterious and strangely protean. It was almost negatively defined, like the hidden power which staunch neoclassicists refused to analyse. However impressive the cry for the spontaneous effusions of "nature", it made but a scant contribution to the knowledge of genius. Too much of the finest not only in poetry but also in music and painting remained outside the narrow confines of the doctrines of the powers of "nature". Samuel Johnson's anti-Ossianic criticism, "Sir, a man may write such stuff for ever, if he would abandon his mind to it",51

was more than a confession of conservatism; it was a protest against primi-tive and artless nature.

49 Letters concerning Taste (London, 1755), p. 101. The poem exhibiting, to Cooper's view, this "fine Frenzy" in a superlative degree was Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination (1744).

50 For the background see Courtland D. Baker, "Certain Religious Elements in the English Doctrine of the Inspired Poet during the Renaissance", ELH, VI (1939), 300—323.

51 Boswell, Life, IV (1934), 183.

XXIII

iho seemingly traditional portion which Gerard took in the Essav on

Gern», thus appear., as an act of moderation in the face of a prim i ^ b i a s

η poet.es and ph.losophical anthropology. His remark that "diligence and

r e c o ' " ν Γ Τ ' 7 a S S Ì S t ° r i m p r o v e i s as much a plea for the recognition of «art» in works of genius as his insistence on the innateness ο

r i X u X h a t i o n 1 ; n a r " · i n k e e p i n g w k h t h e - - d e : : : : : t

critical thought he argued for the priority of "nature" at the same time that

he was aware of an element of "a r t " which could not be slighted or J L r e d

ma comprehensive analysis of genius.- While others attempted an overthrow

S S Î I T * d G e r a b d s e e m sf

t 0 h a v e c o n c e i v e d o f h i s » * careful we r e d ^ " b u t i o n of emphasis went hand in hand with a careful weighing o f h e c o ^ w l l i c h a c c Q r d F a r q u h a f *

π malsuggest ion made up genius. The result was a more penetratmginsigh

in aesthetic theory and which is best known from Young, who Ρ Τ Ξ „ ΐ ν tried to elucidate the essence of genius bv referrino f n Persistently ce«Pc « «Α„ η • · ι « ν 8, °y referring it to unconscious pro-cesses An Ongmal,» Y o u n g explained - with especial success to his Ger man disciples, past and present - "may be said to be of a S t a b l e T a t ù · κ rises spontaneously from the vital root o f Genius; i t ^ s n T Z l

" R e f l e ^ n t ^ r A X „ ™ f 0 : ^ ^ 0 n C e P t ° f ? Γ » " ^ ^ 8 9 9 * W . bungen und Offenbahmngen enheilt Man muYso u D f e m ° n ' ^ ^ und methodisch studirt hfben wen gfn e eTnen Stof hT i f ' ^ f ° r m I i d l

eine besondere [méthode! Art und Ον . Î, Γ ρ Γ s o 1 1 · § e n l e l s t nicht mitgetheilt undverstand i d i L l i , ? ! ι ^ ^ m u ß i e d e r m a n k ö n n e n

by his reading of the Essay on Geniu, TU J r e f l e C . t l 0 n h a v e been inspired no. 949, in w L h Gerard ν " " ^ ^ **

of Ä OSttS&ÜFttever an Ψ of imagination, which we J n n e n t h u s L ^ ^ ρ psychological, not a "theological" explanation of A if ' g a V e 3

and he speaks of it with an unmistakable £ A e n t h u s l a s t I C s t a * of mind, Kant, reflections (nos. « Ä Ä ^ ^ « » » compare

ret b ? e r r d T v Ä t i c t u f • ΐ ΐ τ ί η ^ " r * ™ ώ ι η h a s

Language o f Criticism", UnZniy o f T o r t e n ^ ^ A n a I o 6 i e s - the 313-327, summarized i A A b r l m ^ l I Z T a n ^ Z Î L ™

XXIV

madc".M The introduction of this archetypal analogy of vegetative life is

frequently, but wrongly, assumed to have opened up the correct approach

to the phenomenon of artistic creation and furnished the proper clue to its

understanding. In fact, Young's doctrines came dangerously close to a new

obscurantism in aesthetics. Going beyond the rehabili tation of "nature"

(now seen as the power of "growing" or "procreat ing") , he added the image

of the "magician" to tha t of the vegetative na ture of genius, and thus linked

the product ion of an original work of ar t not only to sub-rational processes

but also to unregulated operations and even to mysterious occurrences.

Adapt ing an idea of Addison's — tha t a genius stood up as "the Prodigy of

Mankind" 5 6 — Young held tha t genius was "the Power of accomplishing

great things wi thout the means generally reputed necessary to tha t end",

and he alleged tha t "a Genius differs f rom a good Understanding, as a Magi-

cian f rom a good Architect; That raises his structure by means invisible; This

by the skilful use of common tools".57 This idea (in a rudimentary fo rm also

present in John Gilbert Cooper58) illustrates the extremes to which the cult of

genius could go. Genius was more than a vegetative organism sprouting f rom

the soil of the irrational ; it was an occult phenomenon.

Gerard employed the same vocabulary, but to a different effect. Since he

finished the first par t of his Essay on Genius in 1758, the claim must be

advanced on his behalf of having invented the vegetative analogy.59 He

seems to have been the first to see and to characterize the t ransforming power

and the self-regulative operations of genius. As early as the Essay on Taste

he admit ted tha t there was something inexplicable in genius and tha t the

workings of the imagination exhibited a sort of magical force:

As the magnet selects, from a quantity of matter, the ferruginous particles which happen to be scattered through it, without making an impression on other sub-stances; so imagination, by a similar sympathy,60 equally inexplicable, draws out

55 Op. cit., p. 12. 56 Spectator, 160. 57 Op. cit., p. 26. 58 See note 49. 59 The term "nature" as employed throughout the eighteenth century suggested

frequent comparisons between natural phenomena and works of genius. A good example is furnished by Pope's criticism of Homer: "Our author's work is a wild paradise, where if we cannot see all the beauties so distinctly as in an ordered garden, it is because the number of them is infinitely greater." In the same context Pope writes about Homer himself: "Perhaps the reason why common Criticks are inclined to prefer a judicious and methodical genius to a great and fruitful one, is, because they find it easier for themselves to pursue their observations through an uniform and boundless walk of Art, than to comprehend the vast and various extent of Nature." (Works, ed. William Warburton [London, 1751], VI, 358). Thus "vegetative" analogies were not so radically new about 1760 as is generally sup-posed, though a new emphasis is clearly discernible at the time.

60 For a discussion of this concept, see Walter Jackson Bate, "The Sympathetic Imagination in Eighteenth-Century English Criticism", ELH, XII (1945), 144—164.

XXII

from the whole compii«« of nature such ideas as wc have occasion for, without nltemliiiK it) any others; und yet presents them with as great propriety, as if all possible conceptions had been explicitly exposed to our view, and subjected to our dioico. At first, these materials may lie in a rude and indigested chaos: but when we attentively review them, the same associating power which formerly made us sensible of their connexion, leads us to perceive the different degrees of that connexion; by its magical force ranges them into different species, according to these degrees; disposes the most strongly related into the same member; and sets all the members in that position which it points out as the most natural. Thus, from a confused heap of materials, collected by fancy, genius, after repeated reviews and transpositions designs a regular and well-proportioned whole. . . . Thus genius is the grand architect which not only chuses the materials, but disposes them into a regular structure.61

To the percep t ive r eade r i t mus t be obvious t h a t G e r a r d , despi te such con-cessions, c a n n o t be p laced w i t h t he r ad ica l theor is ts of genius. I f , on the one h a n d , he refers to the w o r k i n g s of genius in te rms of sub- ra t iona l processes, he employs , on the o ther , the v e r y image of the architect which Y o u n g re ject-ed as inappl icab le to genius. G e r a r d , then , as an e x p o n e n t of mid -e igh teen th -ccn tu ry ideas he ld an in t e rmed ia t e posi t ion. T h e " n a t u r a l " qua i r r a t i ona l c o m p o n e n t of genius is p resen t in his t heo ry , b u t i t is nicely ba l anced by the recogni t ion of some " r a t i o n a l " e lement . F o r t he image of the architect suggests, besides g r a n d e u r of concept ion , persp icu i ty of design.

T h e Essay on Genius subs t i tu ted the image of the p l a n t f o r t h a t of the

magne t . I t w o u l d be w r o n g to in t e rp re t this t r ans i t ion as one f r o m mechanism

to organic ism. In G e r a r d ' s day magne t i sm w a s so complex a p h e n o m e n o n

t h a t no easy equa t ion w i t h a mechanist ic concept is possible. Bu t u n d o u b t e d l y

the vege ta t ive ana logy w a s fel t to be more suggest ive in an age t h a t h a d

t u rned f r o m the c o n t e m p l a t i o n of t he ma je s ty o f the cosmos to t he obse rva -

t ion of t he m i n u t e r objects in phys ica l na tu re . W h i l e Sha f t e sbu ry ' s r ev iva l

of the demiu rg ic ana logy in te rp re t ing the ar t is t , in a lmos t S idneyan terms, as

an alter deus62 seems a p p r o p r i a t e f o r t he age of N e w t o n i a n physics, G e r a r d ' s

l ikening of genius to the p l an t reflects, w i t h co r re spond ing f ide l i ty , t he

d a w n i n g of t he era of L i n n é a n b o t a n y ( the Philosophia Botanica a p p e a r e d in

1751, t h e Species Plantarum in 1753).6 3 Ref in ing u p o n his ea r ly reflections

G e r a r d n o w exp la ined t h a t

61 Op. cit., pp. 163f., 166. 62 Characteristics, ed. John M. Robertson (London, 1900), I, 135f. The passage is,

especially by German critics, often interpreted as anticipating Romantic views. But this is hardly so. The term "plastic nature" refers back to the seventeenth century (see William B. Hunter, "The Seventeenth Century Doctrine of Plastic Nature", Harvard Theological Review, XLIII [1950], 197—213), instead of pointing for-ward to Coleridge's "esemplastic power".

63 For the emergence of new scientific interests in the later eighteenth century (also reflected, incidentally, in Gerard's frequent references to Priestley) see Henry Guerlac, "Newton's Changing Reputation in the Eighteenth Century", in: Carl Becker's Heavenly City Revisited, ed. Raymond O. Rockwood (Ithaca, N. Y., 1958), pp. 3—26.

X X I I

the operations of genius in forming id Ur .« .» , «« <>f » m n r e perfect kmd than Ic operations of art or industry in executing then, A «a tuary concc .v«a l l Je

i n n s of his work at once, though when he comes to execute .t he can form only member at a time, and must during this interval leave all the rest a shape ess

b od . An architect contrives a whole palace in an instant; but when he comes to K, it, he must first provide materials, and then rear the different parts of the

ed ce only in succession. But to collect the materials and to order and apply h n" are not to genius distinct and successive works. This faculty bears a greater

A m b i a n c e to nature in its operations, than to the less perfect energ.es of ^ W en a vegetable draws in moisture from the earth, nature, by the - m e a non by which hdraws it in, and at the same time, converts . t o the ™ n £ m e n t ο the Plant: it at once circulates through its vessels, and is assimilated to its several parts. In like manner, genius arranges its ideas by the same operation arid almost at the same time, that it collects them. . . " ~

unskilful architect; it collects and chuses the materials; and though they may at fir t He η a rude and undigested chaos, it in a great measure by its own orce, after repeated attemps and transpositions, designs a regular and well-proportion-

The'analogy 6, 4 it should be noted, is almost exclus ively intended to convey a

s imultaneity of conception and execution (or, rhetorical ly speaking of inven-

tion and disposition) f o r which there w a s no equivalent in the realms of ar

and c r a f t . The consummate perfect ion of vegeta t ive nature w a s to suggest

the idea of superior co-ordination and c o m p l e t e organisat ion rather than the

idea of unconscious g r o w t h and instinctive p r o d u c t s . " N a t u r e and genius

w e r e in accordance w i t h the o ld formula, b e y o n d the reach of art .

In this perspective the resemblance between the vegeta t ive concepts oi

Y o u n g and Gerard i s a superficial one. Y o u n g w a s inclined to m y s u d s ^ he

took re fuge in enchantment and invisible powers. Gerard, on the other h a n d

aimed at a synthesis: " n a t u r e " and " a r t " he set against each o t h e . In the

Essay on Taste the "magical f o r c e " of genius w a s counterbalanced b y i t s

" g r a n d architecture". N o w , in an emphatic restatement of this ear ly post ton,

the v e g e t a t i v e operation of genius is again contrasted w i t h the concept of the

imagination as " n o unsk i l fu l architect", and the f i n a l product of genius is

compared not to some biological entity - a tree or an animal - b u t to a

regular and we l l-proport ioned edifice' ' . Thus in G e r a r d s v i e w g r o w i n g and

making are not mutual ly exclusive, and both l i fe a n d art i f ice are recognized

Below. DD. 63—65. _ . . fi « While the analogy was taken very seriously by the Romantics, writers like

Kant made use of it in contriving p layful witticisms for the lecture room: Das Genie scheint auch nach der Verschiedenheit des N a t i o n a l s t e s und des Boden^, dem es angeboren ist, verschiedene ursprüngliche Keime in sich zu haben und sie verschiedentlich zu entwickeln. Es schlägt bei den Deutschen mehr in die Wurzel bei den Italiänern in die Krone, bei den Franzosen in die Blüthe und bei den Englandern indie Frucht." Anthropologie i n pragmaüscher Ansicht % f ^ « / * VII, 226). This idea is prefigured in r e f l e c t s no. 977 (XV ., 427f.), a ^ d m phase?, after Kant had read Gerard; an earlier version (no. 738; àV, 325) does not employ the analogy.

XXVII

A> being pre»ent in a work of genius. The biological analogy is given its due, but the technological analogy is not rejected. In the famous eighteenth-cen-tury mode Gerard appears to have steered "betwixt the extremes of doctrines seemingly opposite" and formed "a temperate yet not inconsistent system".66

IV

Gerard himself regarded his study of the nature and workings of genius as a contribution to the "science of human nature". He conceived of himself as a member of that large, though loosely defined, group of eighteenth-century philosophers who thought that mental and moral phenomena would lend themselves to the same kind of exacting inquiry to which the physical world had been subjected by natural science. The term links such diverse produc-tions as the Essay on Genius and the Essay on Man,67 and it establishes a common ground for the philosophy of genius as expounded by Gerard and the philosophy of medicine as taught by the fashionable physician Dr. George Cheyne.68 It recalls Hume's "experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence"69 and brings to mind Hutcheson's "attempt to introduce a mathematical calculation into subjects of Morality".70 Of course, the Essay on Genius contains none of the wild speculations which resulted from sanguine hopes based on fanciful premises. But it cannot be overlooked that "science" plays an important part in it.

I-'irst of all, Gerard's method was "scientific". Not that he intended to demonstrate that something like genius existed. This was a matter of fact, one of the elementary data which could, in true Scottish fashion, be verified only by common sense and general experience. Here Gerard was in the same position as Duff, who began by observing that the phenomenon of genius "must have occurred to every one who has surveyed, with an ordinary degree of attention, the unequal distribution of natural talents among mankind".71

Then came the first really scientific procedure — "to collect such a number of facts concerning any of the mental powers, as will be sufficient for deduc-

u The same modus operandi is discernible in the Essay on Taste, which opens with the statement: "A fine taste is neither wholly the gift of nature, nor wholly the olFeet of art."

47 See Pope's "Design" prefixed to the poem. 61 Sec An Essay on Regimen: Together with Five Discourses, Medical, Moral, and

Philosophical (London, 1740). 69 "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding"', Philosophical Works, ed.

Thomas 1 lill Green and Thomas Hodge Grose (ed. Aalen, 1964), IV, 135. n Inquiry into the Original oj our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (London, 1725),

title-page. 7' Op. cit., p. 3.

XXXVIII

ing conclusions concerning them, by a just and regular induction". Needless to say, Gerard had the time-honoured Baconian ideal before him; he naively trusted this to be the infallible method in dealing with phenomena that were "almost universally regarded as anomalous and inexplicable".72

But any inductive process presupposed a criterion by which to recognize genius. The question "What is genius?" had to be answered, before facts could be collected and conclusions be drawn. Again, no proof was possible; instead, common opinion was once more appealed to for establishing "so clear a case" that no dissenting vote could be voiced. Gerard realized that there was "a difficulty in determining the province of genius, which arises from the natural intricacy and mutual connexion of the intellectual powers". Besides, he found his difficulty "increased by the confused application of names".73 This remark suggests that, before deciding on a definition of genius, he had surveyed the field from a psychological and a philosophical point of view, as these were then understood, and that he had found the old faculty psychology and the new polemic philosophy of genius both wanting in applicability. The criteria with which they worked seem to have appeared too loose or too narrow.

Gerard's definition of genius — advanced after some perfunctory clearing of the ground — is surprisingly simple: "Genius is properly the faculty of invention."1* To readers familiar with the ecstatic raptures of the Geniekult this must have come as an unusually sober message, and it has been taken by modern readers for a somewhat old-fashioned doctrine. "Faculty" is, indeed, reminiscent of bygone efforts to cope with problems of psychology, while "invention" seems to indicate a traditional approach, especially in an author who quotes from Quintilian so frequently as Gerard. At first sight, there is nothing new in this definition, nothing remotely so provocative as Young's distinction between "the well-accomplished Scholar, and the divinely-inspir-ed Enthusiast".75

However, Gerard had no intention of making emotional appeals or of capturing his reader by an intellectual surprise. He simply wanted to furnish an explanation for the phenomenon of genius in the widest sense. In judging his criterion one must bear in mind that he was one of the last advocates of the science of human nature to view science and the arts as complementary fields of activity. In an age that increasingly focused its attention on the poet as the genius, Gerard tried to retain a broad perspective and to devise a

72 Essay on Genius, pp. 3, 4; see also p. 16f. Rule 17 of the Society provided: "Philosophical Matters are understood to comprehend, Every Principle of Science which may be deduced by Just and Lawfull Induction from the Phenomena either of the human Mind or of the material World; All Observations & Experiments that may furnish Materials for such Induction."

73 Ibid., p. 7. 7* Ibid., p. 8. 75 Op. cit., p. 54.

XXXIX

formula that discloscd, in one word, what Homer and Newton had in common. And obviously the term invention alone was comprehensive enough to designate that faculty "by means of which a man is qualified for making new discoveries in science, or for producing original works of art".76

Two things are notable about Gerard's basic formula. First, the restrictive use of the word original. In view of the almost universal agreement among his contemporaries that originality was the distinctive attribute of genius ("original genius" being a term in its own right), the absence of this word not only from the title of Gerard's study but also f rom the very definition of genius is indeed striking. It can hardly be accounted for by the existence of Duff's Essay on Original Genius. Gerard had made his discoveries by himself and would have employed the term, had he found it useful. But the fact is that he already avoided it in the Essay on Taste, where his definition, in slightly different form — "the first and leading quality of genius is inven-

tion"11 — made its initial appearance. The real reason for Gerard's self-im-posed restriction seems to have been the word original itself. In its compara-tively complicated history it had come to mean all things to all critics, and there was a considerable variety of theories about the foundations and manifestations of originality.78 In addition, the discussion had for the most part been centred on literature and, as in the case of wit, a strong subjective element was frequently involved. The term, then, was both over-worked in the field of literature and, due to many connotations, slightly inappropriate for scientific genius. Hence the almost paradoxical situation that an "origi-nal" contribution to the study of genius in general could best be made by substituting another term for this ambiguous and enigmatic word.

The other noteworthy feature of Gerard's definition is the precedence which scientific genius takes over "genius for the arts", as Gerard liked to call it. That "new discoveries in science" are listed first could be taken as an insignificant stylistic detail, but it is hardly that. It is, rather, an indication of the decisive rôle which scientific genius played in the shaping of Gerard's concept. N o t only does it receive the same attention as genius for the arts, but it is also responsible for the emphasis which Gerard lays on "invention". In some parts of the study invention is the rhetorical inventioP Primarily, however, invention means the act of discovery, as this was traditionally understood in the various branches of science. Though Gerard exploits the full spectrum of the word's meaning, it is this scientific tinge that is most noticeable throughout the book. More than any other analyst of genius, Gerard approached his subject with the great achievements of science in mind,

76 Below, p. 8. 77 Op. cit., p. 163. 78 See Elizabeth L. Mann, "The Problem of Originality in English Literary

Criticism, 1750—1800", Philological Quarterly, XVIII (1939), 97—118. 79 See, for instance, pp. 60ff.

XXII

above all that of Newton, who looms as lai·««.· as 1 [oilier and Shakespeare in

tlie Essay on Genius.

However unusual such a juxtaposition may appear in the age of Two Cultures, it had nothing extraordinary about it when Lessing wrote

Das Alter wird uns stets mit dem Homer beschämen, Und unsrer Zeiten Ruhm muß Newton auf sich nehmen, Zwei Geister gleich an Groß', und ungleich nur im Werk, Die Wunder ihrer Zeit, des Neides Augenmerk,80

and Samuel Johnson uttered his conviction "that, had Sir Isaac Newton applied to poetry, he would have made avery fine epic poem".81 In fact, all of the pre-Romantic analysts of genius supposed that genius for the arts and genius for science were similarly constituted and that all differences between the two were of secondary importance. Even if, as in Kant 's Kritik der

Urteilskraft, Newton and Homer were not treated as two minds "ungleich nur im Werk",82 the concept of scientific genius always served as a sort of check on the concept of artistic genius and vice versa. The total dissociation of the two and the elevation of the poet to unique pre-eminence was a product of Romantic thought and responsible for such extravagant views of poetic genius as those set forth by Coleridge and Shelley. In this respect, Gerard's Essay on Genius may be regarded as the antithesis to the Biographia

Literaria and the Defence of Poetry. Harsh as it may sound, Gerard affirmed that "the more important relations of things" were explored by science and philosophy, while "the more trivial relations, . . . naturally adapted to amusement and pleasure", were reserved for the arts.83

In view of the Romantic exaltation of the artist and especially of the poet, Gerard's particular interest in the scientist serves as a useful reminder that the whole concept of modern genius originated, at least in England, in seventeenth-century science.84 The first original geniuses were those scientists who threw off the fetters of Aristotelian physics and thereby asserted, in the eyes of their contemporaries, their intellectual independence. Many of the later ideas about genius can be traced back to the new image of the scientist which developed after the foundation of the Royal Society and which was, in glowing colours, drawn by its first historian:

Invention is an Heroic thing, and plac'd above the reach of a low, and vulgar Genius. It requires an active, a bold, a nimble, a restless mind: a thousand diffi-culties must be contemn'd, with which a mean heart would be broken: many

80 "Aus einem Gedicht an den Herrn M"'*", Gesammelte Werke, ed. Paul Rilla, I (Berlin, 1954), 189f.

ei Life, V, 35. 82 Gesammelte Schriften, V, 308—309. 83 See below, pp. 331 f. 84 The best general study is Richard Foster Jones, Ancients and Modems: A

Study of the Rise of the Scientific Movement in Seventeenth-Century England (ed. St. Louis, 1961).

XXXI

attempt! muit be made to no purpose: mudi Treasure must sometimes be scattcr'd without any return: mudi violence^ and vigor of thoughts must attend it: some irregularities, and excesses must be granted it, that would hardly be pardon'd by the severe Rules of Prudence. All whidi may persuade us, that a large, and an unbounded mind is likely to be the Author of greater Productions, than the calm, obscure, and fetter'd indeavors of the Mechanics themselves,85

There were, indeed, few features to be discovered in the original genius of the late eighteenth century which his ideal forerunner did not exhibit a century earlier. His was the active and vigorous mind that Gerard came to describe in the terms of a new psychology, and his was the freedom from the rules of prudence that Young was to find an infallible mark of genius. His pursuit was invention, and his stature was above that of ordinary mortals. In an age that still cherished the ideal of greatness the scientist was the last hero after the heroic age had come to a close, and the first original genius before the Romantic age began.86

Early attempts to transplant this concept f rom the field of science to that of literature were made in the seventeenth century.87 In most cases the cham-pions of the untrammeled exertion of modern genius drew explicit parallels between science and literature, and they saw no reason why the overthrow of Aristotelian physics should not be followed by an overthrow of Aristo-telian poetics. The last in this succession of rebels was Edward Young, who claimed Bacon as his patron and expected England to produce original works of art because there had already been original inventions in science.88 But despite his references to Newton, Young had no clear idea of what scientific genius was, and to the reader of the Conjectures Bacon remains a shadowy background figure worshipped at a distance. Young failed to integrate the concepts of scientific and artistic genius, and that is why the Conjectures

mark at once the inconspicuous end of the Querelle and the spectacular beginning of the intemperate cult of the self-adulating poetic genius.

When seen against this background, Gerard's definition presents itself as the result of rudimentary "scientific" procedures. It does not, in the first

85 Thomas Sprat, History of the Royal Society (1667), ed. Jackson I. Cope and Howard Whitmore Jones (St. Louis, 1958), p. 392.

86 There is no wholly satisfactory study of the seventeenth-century scientist. See, however, G. N. Clark, Science and Social Welfare in the Age of Newton (Oxford, 1949); Lewis S. Feuer, The Scientific Intellectual: The Psychological & Sociological Origins of Modern Science (New York and London, 1963); Moody E. Prior, "Bacon's Man of Science", in: Roots of Scientific Thought: A Cultural Perspective, ed. Philip P. "Wiener and Aaron Noland (New York, 1960), pp. 382—389; Ernest Lee Tuveson, Millenium and Utopia: A Study in the Background of the Idea of Progress (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1949).

87 Richard Foster Jones, "Science and Criticism in the Neo-Classical Age of English Literature", in: The Seventeenth Century: Studies in the History of English Thought and Literature from Bacon to Pope: By Richard Foster Jones and Others Writing in his Honor (Stanford, 1951), pp. 41—74.

88 Op. cit., pp. 69, 76.

XXXVIII

plaee, neglect the origins of the modern concept of genius. By making inven-tion the criterion, it preserves, neatly and ingeniously, the heritage of the seventeenth century. Though the Essay on Genius has no section which could be called a historical survey of the subject (in 1758, this was hardly possible, since the old rise-and-progress formula was exhausted and the new histori-cal approach just about to be discovered), Gerard's pragmatic collection of examples in the quasi-historical fashion of Hume time and again recalls the heroic age of seventeenth-century science. There are not only frequent mentions of Newton, but also generous quotations f r o m Bacon, references to Boyle, and even occasional sidelights on Halley as a poet. All this counter-balances the otherwise heavy reliance on Pliny, Cicero, and Quintilian, which might give the impression that Gerard, according to the old dichotomy, was a champion of the ancients.8 '

Furthermore, Gerard's definition aimed at being inclusive. Nothing would serve the purpose that did not do justice to scientific as well as to artistic genius. Throughout his study Gerard tries to reduce the two varieties to the same principles and to refer their operations to the same processes of the mind, and he never gives his reader the feeling that the scientist is unduly subordinated to the artist, nor the artist to the scientist. Genius for the arts and genius for science are treated, with scrupulous attention to their peculiar-ities, as parallel phenomena, while their differences are accounted for as variant combinations of the same faculties. Thus Gerard achieved the very balance which the Romantics lacked and which gave rise to their nostalgic vision of a reunion of science and poetry.90

Finally, Gerard's definition had the advantage of being flexible, since the term invention was capable of different adaptations. If to the pioneer scien-tist of the seventeenth century it had held the twofold promise of heroism and of originality, to Gerard it presented the double aspect of discovery and production. In his initial explanation of genius the first aspect was meant to characterize the achievement of scientific genius, while the second applied to that for the arts. Though at first these words seem to convey nothing but their ordinary meaning, they are nevertheless subtly suggestive. Discovery

presupposes a static concept of nature. Whatever is discovered has already been there and remained unnoticed until being detected and brought to light. Such was Newton's discovery of the law of gravitation — a unique insight into the structure of reality. Nothing had been produced in the sense of being created; a pre-existent truth had merely been disclosed as the result of search and inquiry. No matter what modern opinion has to say about scientific

89 It should be noted that most of the quotations from ancient authors furnish "examples" for the inductive process.

90 See, for instance, Wordsworth's preface to the second edition of the "Lyrical Ballads", Poetical Works, ed. E. de Selincourt, II (Oxford, 1944), 396f. Friedrich Schlegel entertained similar ideas.

XXXIX

discovery, this was an axiom in classical physics and an undisputed view in

Gerard's day.

To the literary historian this theory of discovery bears a close resemblance

to the neoclassical assumptions about literature. According to the represent-

ative critics of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, literary

genres were in a similar way "discovered". Thus Homer's invention was the

discovery of the epic, and if, in Pope's famous phrase, nature and Homer

were the same,'1 the laws of the epic were inherent in nature in much the

same manner as was the law of gravitation. Hence the concept of invariable

canons, and hence the prescriptive authority of rule and reason. To conceive,

as Gerard did, of the literary work as a "production" in the strict sense of

the word is to take an anti-neoclassical view. It is to assume that the artistic

invention is brought into existence by an act of creation. The work of art is

made, fabricated, composed, engendered — in short, anything but found or

discovered.

It is idle to speculate whether or not Gerard was a Romantic theorist of

literature. The important thing is the double aspect of what he simply called

invention. If "discovery" is not confined to science, and "production" not

reserved for the arts (and there is no reason to believe that Gerard should

have insisted on a strict separation),92 his definition gains in applicability. It

works in a neoclassical environment, and it need not be modified to suit the

Romantics. It can remain the same, whether a closed world is postulated or

an infinite universe, and it will hold good no matter if "nature" is a static

order or a dynamic process.

V

Gerard's most distinctive contribution to the science of human nature was made in the rigorous psychological analysis to which he subjected the phenom-enon of genius. In fact, his orientation towards contemporary psychology gives the Essay on Genius a unique place among the eighteenth-century stud-ies of the subject. Though Gerard was certainly not the first to realize the inadequacy of any inquiry into the nature and workings of genius which ignored the psychological side of the problem, none of the other theoreticians was so fully aware of the paramount importance of the psychological approach. While their views of the psychology of genius, including those of Duff, bear the mark of random achievement and incidental discovery, Gerard's essay is a detailed and systematic exploration. He maintains a

91 Essay on Criticism, 11. 134f. . . 92 On p. 27, for instance, occurs the following definition: "Invention is the

capacity of producing new beauties in works of art, and new truths in works of science." See also an interesting passage in Duff's Essay (pp. 94f.), in which "inven-

tion" and "creation" are juxtaposed.

XXXIV

consistent point of view throughout his analysis, ami his aim was to resolve a complex menial activity into elementary functions. Gerard's m e t h o d remain-ed the same as it had been in the Essay on Taste. In the earlier work he had tried to resolve taste "into its simple principles" (i.e. into several basic "senses") and explained the "formation of Taste" from the "union and improvement" of these. Now he proceeded to derive the "nature and vane-ties" of genius "f rom the simple qualities of the human mind".93

There are certain incongruities in Gerard's terminology which indicate something of the difficulties he encountered. The psychological vocabulary of the time was, despite several innovations, comparatively limited, and Gerard was evidently forced to make a choice between calling genius a "power" and a "faculty", though what he wanted to describe was neither the one nor the other in the traditional and technical senses of these words. Thus, in the very same chapter, genius is "one of the intellectual powers, . . . distinguishable from the rest" as well as "the faculty of invention".94 The present-day reader will readily pass over such discrepancies, but for the contemporary student more important issues were involved. Kant, for instance, one of Gerard's most careful readers, called this view into question: "Genie ist nicht, so wie Gerard will, eine besondere Kra f t der Seele (sonst würde sie ein bestimmt obiect haben), sondern ein prineipium der Belebung aller anderen Kräf te durch ideen der obiecte, welche man will. Erfindung setzt eine Belebung der Erkenntniskrafte voraus, nicht blos die schärfung der Lernfähigkeiten. Aber diese Belebung muß durch die Erzeugung einer idee auf einen Zwek gerichtet seyn; sonst ist es nicht Erfindung, sondern zufallige Entdekung." '5 It made, indeed, some difference whether genius was thought of as a separate intellec-tual power or an invigorating principle, as is indicated by another remark of Kant 's · "Geist ist das prineipium der Belebung (der Talente, Seelenkralte) durch ideen (also einer zwekmäßig belebten Einbildungskraft)."96 N o t only was the hierarchy of the mental powers involved, but at stake were radically different philosophical and psychological concepts. However, what is im-portant is not so much the difference of opinion between Gerard and Kant as the fact that Gerard's pioneer efforts in analysing genius were beset with problems and that the solutions he presented were not the only conceivable

° T f Kant pointed out a possible f law in Gerard's argument, he also called

attention to a most relevant feature of Gerard's theory. As an invigorating

w Below p. 4. „ « Below, p. 6, also p. 5: «. . . what it is that properly constitutes Genius as

distinguished from our other intellectual powers." '5 Reflection no. 949 (XV, i, 420). « Reflection no. 942 {ibid., p. 418). .

Kant's objection was anticipated by a reviewer in the Edinburgh Review and

Magazine, II (1774), 589.

XXII

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and memory, from which it receives the first elements of all its conceptions, so when it exerts itself in the way of genius, it has an immediate connexion with judgement, which must constantly attend it, and correct and regulate its suggestions. This connection is so intimate, that a man can scarce be said to have invented till he has exercised his judgement."108 This demonstrates perfectly Gerard's departure from the traditional divisions of faculty psychol-ogy in search of that "natural" principle of superior synthesis which he thought was operative in genius.

In devising this concept of the fusion of several powers in the exertions of genius, Gerard once more followed a via media. It will be recalled that John Farquhar, who first put the problem of genius before the Aberdeen Society, suggested an alternative: genius consisted either in the perfection of one faculty or in a combination of several. Gerard bridged this alternative by making imagination the central power on which genius depended, and assigning contributory functions to the others. In fact, the Essay on Genius

carries Farquhar's suggestion in either way to its most detailed implications. On the one hand it offers a most penetrating analysis of the imagination, and on the other it traces every single "influence" on the imagination. The book, as it were, radiates in both directions f rom the centre of Farquhar's question. It furnishes the most complete answer to it.

In Gerard's theory of the imagination little was left of the predominantly negative rôle which this "lowest" of the intellectual powers had generally played in the critical systems of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. To Gerard it did not, as it did to Bacon, "submit the shows of things to the desires of the mind";109 nor was it merely, as Hobbes thought, "decaying sense".110 The imagination which Gerard — together with what he termed "the generality of mankind"111 — regarded as the inventive power proper had passed through practically all the stages of positive eighteenth-century re-definition.112 It had gained the ascendency over reason, so that the latter,

108 Ibid., pp. 36, 37. In support of his assertion Gerard quotes Quintilian, III, iii, 5—7. Gerard's holistic notion is best revealed when this and other passages (e-S-> PP· 63ff.) are contrasted with Duff's traditional version of the inventive process. To Gerard invention and disposition as the common exertion of imagination and judgement are an indivisible process; to Duff they are distinct acts successively performed by imagination and judgement. See op. cit., pp. 70f.

109 Advancement of Learning, Book II (De Augmentis, II, 13). 1,0 Leviathan, I, ii. 111 Below, p. 31. 112 A good example of the late eighteenth-century view of the imagination is

furnished by John Aikin: "Hitherto all is simple and natural, and poetry so far from being the art of fiction, is the faithful copyist of external objects and real emotions. But the mind of man cannot long be confined within prescribed limits; there is an internal eye constantly stretching its view beyond the bounds of natural vision, and something new, something greater, more beautiful, more excellent, is required to gratify its noble longing. This eye of mind is the imagination — it peoples the world with new beings, it embodies abstract ideas, it suggests unexpected resemblances, it

XXXVIII

despite "the appearance of an inventive power",113 followed in the footsteps of the imagination.114 There are, it is true, a number of cautionary remarks about the dangerous effects of an ill-disciplined imagination, but these sound a more traditional note. The decisive point is that Gerard held the imagina-tion in its workings to be unbounded as well as independent of the percep-tions of sense and the recollections of memory. While earlier critics had seen in the imagination an essentially reproductive power, Gerard insisted that, even in its simplest exertions, it was genuinely creative. "I t does not," he explained, "like memory, professedly copy its ideas f rom preceding percep-tions of sense, nor refer them to any prior archetype. It exhibits them as independent existences produced by itself. It may be questioned, whether, in some very peculiar cases, its power extends not even to the formation of a simple idea."115 Thus Gerard was, as Kant immediately realized, among the first late eighteenth-century proponents of the new concept of the imagination as "productive Einbildungskraft".116

creates first, and then presides over its creation with absolute sway. Not less accurately and philosophically, than poetically, has our great Shakespeare described this faculty in the following lines. The Poet's eye in a fine phrenzy rolling Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the Poet's pen Turns them to shape, and gives to aery nothing A local habitation and a name." Essays on Song-Writing: With a Collection of Such English Songs as Are Most Eminent for Poetical Merit . . . (ed. London, 1774), pp. 6f. See also Gerard's Essay on Genius, p. 30. The Shakespearean concept of the imagination was then almost a conventional conceit reinforced, it would seem, by the Lucretian motif of "extra processit longe flammantia moenia mundi" (De Rerum Natura, I, 72—73).

113 Below, p. 33. 114 "Even in science," Gerard thought, "where relations are what we want to

discover, judgment cannot search out or bring into view, the perceptions that are to be compared. They must be suggested by some other power" (below, pp. 32f.). On the one hand, Gerard's notions may seem fanciful; on the other, they are not so radically different from what a modern scientist tells the layman about the making of scientific discoveries; see P. B. Medawar, "Imagination and Hypothesis", Times Literary Supplement, October 25, 1963, pp. 849—850, as well as Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago, 1962).

115 Below, p. 29. 116 Immanuel Kant's Menschenkunde oder philosophische Anthropologie: Nach

handschriftlichen Vorlesungen herausgegeben von Fr. Ch. Starke (Leipzig, 1831), pp. 107f.: "Gerard, ein Engländer, sagt, die größte Eigenschaft des Genies sey die pro-ductive Einbildungskraft; denn Genie ist vom Nachahmungsgeiste am meisten unterschieden, so daß man glaubt, der Nachahmungsgeist sey die größte Unfähigkeit, sich dem Genie zu nähern. Das Genie gründet sich also nicht auf die reproductive Einbildungskraft, sondern auf die productive und eine fruchtbare Einbildungskraft in Hervorbringung der Vorstellungen giebt dem Genie vielen Stoff, darunter zu wählen. Dieses Productionsvermögen wird eingetheilt in die willkührlidie und un-willkührliche Imagination. Die willkührliche besteht darin, daß der Mensdi die

XXXIX

It 11 difficult to determine when exactly in the history of critical thought the transition took place from the concept of a reproductive imagination to that of a productive imagination. There seem to have been several "advances" at different times. One phase, however, is clearly discernible, and to this the Essay on Genius belongs. Most of the late eighteenth-century Scottish writers on genius and related subjects were of the same opinion as Gerard

They were so thoroughly agreed on this point that the creative imagination can almost be said to have been an axiom in the aesthetics and philosophical anthropology of the Scottish School. William Duff - to take a writer who

preceded Gerard in date of publication - succinctly expressed the tenet

when he said that the imagination was "enabled to present a creation of its own .

Since such statements are often taken to imply a Romantic attitude to-wards the imagination, it must be emphasized that the Scottish theory is essentially different from the later dogma of Coleridge and Shelley. For Gerard and his fellow philosophers the inventive process was characterized not by the unrestricted play of a sovereign imagination but by an intimate rusion of imagination and judgement. "Though genius be properly a com-prehensive, regular, and active imagination," explained Gerard, "yet it can never attain perfection, or exert itself successfully on any subject except it be united with a sound and piercing judgment."118 Similarly, Duff declared with regard to imagination, judgement, and taste that only "by their union [could] the full perfection of Genius" be attained.11 ' In a broader perspec-tive, the Scottish writers advocated a middle position between the neoclas-sicists and theRomantics - Both theories set the imagination in opposition to udgement. While the neoclassicists assigned to the imagination a limited

though adequate role under the control of judgement,"1 which was the organ of truth, the Romantics exalted the imagination as a vehicle of "higher" truth and gave reason judgement) a subordinate position. The resulting anti-thesis made it difficult to present a satisfactory analysis of genius (both artistic and scientific) on the basis of either one of these theories. Gerard and the Scottish writers avoided, at least in principle, the issue by coupling the assumption of a creative imagination, in which they differed from the

That.gke.ten semer Imagination nach Belieben ausüben, sich Bilder darstellen und versehenden lassen, sie nach seinem Belieben machen kann Se unw H k û h r l Î heißt die Phantasie, und ob zwar viele Schriftsteller beide schon der Redegebrauch Anlaß, sie zu unterscheiden.» ' S° 8 l e b t d o d l

117 Op. cit., p. 7. 118 Below, p. 71. 119 Op. cit., p. 20.

PU; 1 7 £ , ° n d ' D l s t r u s t °f Imagination in English Neo-Classicism»

X

neoclassicists, with that of a union between imagination and judgement, in which they can, in retrospect, be disiinguislioil from the Romantics. Gerard's concept, then, would seem to be a historically relevant configuration of ideas between rival theories.

VI

The argument of the Essay on Genius was aptly summarized by a contem-

porary German reviewer: "Ein vortreffliches Buch! Der Gang ist dieser:

Genie äußert sich vornehmlich durch Erfindung, diese entsteht durch Einbil-

dungskraft, diese wiederum hängt ab von der Ideenverbindung, daher aus-

führlich von dieser Materie, und so schön, daß dieß Werk hierüber ein Haupt -

buch ist. Die mehresten Beyspiele sind aus Shakespear genommen."122 This is

not so much a restatement of the contents of the book as an epitome of the

successive stages in the formation of Gerard's thought and a synopsis of the

way in which he conducted his "scientific" inquiry. From establishing the

criterion for genius he proceeded to discovering the source of genius and

finally to analysing the nature of the mental processes upon which it depend-

ed.

It is particularly in the transition from the second phase to the third that

Gerard's claim to a "scientific" approach reveals itself. He was not satisfied

with demonstrating that, as he said, genius arose f rom the imagination; he

also wanted to show how it arose from the imagination. That is to say,

Gerard's programme was completed not by his referring genius to the imagi-

nation as the inventive faculty but by his explaining the workings of the

imagination, both in general and in the special type of mind called genius.

Traditionally, everything that was lawless, undisciplined, and chimerical in

the productions of the human mind had been said to be the product of the

imagination. Gerard's theory was established in opposition to the opinion

that this faculty was "capricious and unaccountable". His basic assumption

was that, contrary to popular belief, the imagination was "subject to establish-

ed laws".123

There was no necessary connection between the concept of a creative imagination and that of invariable "laws" governing the productive mental processes. William Duff, for instance, despite striking similarities between his theory of genius and that of Gerard, hardly went beyond the statement that "Genius and Imagination are one and the same thing".124 His analysis of the operations of the imagination remained vague. In his view it was rambling, volatile, accurate, just, exact, vivid, extensive, vigorous, plastic,

122 Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek: Anhang zu dem fünf und zwanzigsten bis sechs und dreyßigsten Bande, Zweyte Abteilung, n. d., p. 1091.

T23 Below, p. 70. 124 Op. cit., p. 23.

XII

irregular, vehement, enthusiastic - in short, anything but subject to definable laws.'2" Thus, Gerard's fusion of the two concepts must be regarded as a special feature of the Essay on Genius and as an original contribution to the study of the subject. Nobody before him had tried to explain genius in the same "scientific" manner.

Gerard's ideas on this point were fully developed when he started his inquiry. Their genesis can, however, be followed in the Essay on Taste in a section dealing with the dependence of taste upon the imagination:

Imagination is first of all employed in presenting such ideas, as are not attended with remembrance, or a perception of their having been formerly in the mind. This defect of remembrance, as it prevents our referring them to their original sensations, dissolves their natural connection. But when memory has lost their real bonds of union, fancy, by its associating power, confers upon them new ties, that they may not lie perfectly loose, ranges them in an endless variety of forms! Many of these being representations of nothing that exists in nature,126 whatever is fictitious or chimerical is acknowledged to be the offspring of this faculty, and is termed imaginary. But wild and lawless as this faculty appears to be, it commonly observes certain rules, associating chiefly ideas which resemble, or 'are contrary, or those that are conjoined, either merely by custom, or by the connec-tion of their objects in vicinity, coexistence, or causation. It sometimes presumes that ideas have these relations, when they have them not; but it generally discovers them, where they are; and by this means becomes the cause of our most important operations.127

In one word: Gerard's laws of the imagination were those established by the associationists, whose doctrines determined the philosophy and literary theory of the age so decisively that "it may be questioned, indeed, whether any philosophical or psychological doctrine has since permeated critical thought in so great a degree".128

Apart f rom its intrinsic merits the associationist psychology held a special promise to the scientists of human nature, and this appears to be one of the main reasons why Gerard introduced it into his analysis of genius. Gerard intended to explain genius f rom "the simple qualities of the human mind".129

By simple he obviously meant the pure and elementary. What the association-ists claimed as their discovery was the fundamental and supreme law by

125 See ibid., pp. 9, 33, 47, 58, 97. , 2 i This appears to be Gerard's first pronouncement on the "productive" imagi-

nation. 127 Op. cit. (ed. London, 1759), pp. 167f. Later Gerard made major revisions in

this chapter. 128 Walter Jackson Bate, From Classic to Romantic: Premises of Taste in Eight-

eenth-CenturyEngland (ed. N e w York, 1961), p. 96. In addition to this basic study see Gordon McKenzie, Critical Responsiveness: A Study of the Psychological Current m Later Eighteenth-Century Criticism, University of California Publica-tions m English, vol. 20 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1949); William K. Wimsatt, jr., and Cleanth Brooks, Literary Criticism: A Short History (New York 1957) Part II, chapter 14; Ralph Cohen, "Association of Ideas and Poetic Unity"' Philo-logical Quarterly, X X X V I (1957), +65—474

129 Below, p. 4.

XLII

which the mind was organi/od and governed. It was probably David Hume who put forward this claim in its most pithy and trenchant form in his Treatise of Human Nature. There arc, lie held, "principles of union or cohe-sion among our simple ideas, and in the imagination supply the place of that inseparable connexion, by which they are united in our memory. Here is a kind of A T T R A C T I O N , which in the mental world will be found to have as extraordinary effects as in the natural, and to shew itself in as many and as various forms".130 Thus associationism pronounced the uniform validity of "attraction" throughout the realms of matter and mind, and thus fulfilled the promise which Newton had made in his Opticks for the advancement of the study of human nature.131 With the principle of association the "Bounds of Moral Philosophy" had, in the eyes of the eighteenth-century philosophes,

been enlarged to the same extent as those of natural philosophy by the law of gravitation. Since the Scots above all others had made the perfection of moral philosophy along these lines the aim and object of their endeavours, any study of the phenomena of the mind which claimed to be definitive could hardly ignore this basic law of anthropology. Gerard's contribution was the application of associationism to the study of genius. And that is why his book is at once a work on genius and, as the German reviewer nicely put it, a sort of "Hauptbuch" of the associationist doctrines.

The precise intellectual affiliations of the Essay on Genius are difficult to establish. There is much in it that was common knowledge at the time. It has been surmised that Gerard went back to Aristotle and that he adopted the Greek philosopher's classification of the categories of association. Yet it seems more reasonable to consider Gerard as a disciple of Hume, whose Treatise he referred to several times as a source. Hume was not himself a member of the Aberdeen group, but the Society was intimately familiar with his ideas, and his writings were frequently discussed in their meetings. In March, 1763, when Gerard was struggling with the associationist aspects of

his study, Thomas Reid wrote to Hume: Your Friendly adversaries Drs Campbell & Gerard as well as Dr Gregory return their compliments to you r e s p e c t f u l l y - A lit e Philosophical Society here of which all the three are members, is much indebted to you for its enterta.n-

130 -a Treatise of Human Nature" (I, iv), Philosophical Works, I, 321.

"I Queiy 31 (ed. New York, 1952), p. 405. 132 gee Gladys Bryson, Man and Society: The Scottish Inquiry of the Eighteenth

Century (Princeton, 1945). . M „ „ . 133 Sir William Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic, ed. H. L. Mansei

and lohn Veitch (ed. Edinburgh and London, 1859), II, 230—232. 134 «The society . . . during its early years gravitated in a distant orbit round

Hume." S. A. Grave, The Scottish Philosophy of Common Seme (Oxtord, I960),

P" IM The accent is definitely on "friendly". Hume had seen Gerard's Essay on Taste through the press. See John Nichols, Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century . . ., II (London, 1812), 326.

XLIII

WC a r c a I 1 Christians, be more Ä u ° f S

La m t , A t h a n a s i u s · A n d « » « "e cannot have you upon

the bend., you are brought oftener than any other man to the bar, accused and defended with great zeal but without bitterness."«

This should suffice as an indication of Gerard 's philosophical heritage

The ways in which Gerard adapted Hume ' s ideas and worked out the

a s soc i a t i ons premise need not be dealt wi th in detail. They are immediately

apparent f r om the treatise itself. It should, however, be noted tha t his

revision of facul ty psychology in conjunction wi th the associationist theory

ot the imagination made it possible to explain all varieties of genius. In the

first place, the empirically observable differences could be at t r ibuted to

various combinations of the intellectual powers. According to the kind and

degree of assistance" which the imagination received f rom memory or f r om

judgement, several types of genius could be distinguished. Simultaneously, the

differences in the turn and construction of the imagina t ion» '* permit ted

fur ther divisions There were, as Gerard recognized, a number of associating

principles and the temporary predominance of one, or the permanent pre

valence of another, accounted for diverse manifestations of genius. A given

turn of genius corresponded to a part icular constellation of the associating

principles, and in many ways the «construction» of the imagination (con

ceived i n mechanistic terms)"» w a s t h e u k i m a t e r a t i o n a l e i n ^ ^ ^

ol genius. '

1° G e r a r d ' S t h e 0 r y a P r e d s i o n w h i c h o f the other studies had and which could hardly be attained again by proceeding f rom the same assumptions. Apar t f rom m a n y observations upon part icular

kmds of genius, such as genius fo r poetry, painting, or science, Gerard was

able to answer a question tha t engaged the at tention of practically all the

writers on genius If genius was the acme of man's mind, the perfection of

his powers, was there a universal genius? Young, Duff , and Kant , too, ven-

tured an opinion on this point , and their answers tended to be negative. K a n t

believed tha t a genius was principally different f r om what he called "ein

allgemeiner K o p f and tha t a genius was «nicht sowohl von großem U m -

fange des Geistes, als intensiver Größe desselben»." ' Duff was doubt fu l · «An

universal genius is a very extraordinary phenomenon.» '« And Young blunt ly

aff i rmed: . . . as for a general Genius, there is no such thing in nature

Gran ted his axioms, Gerard 's answer was superior. Though cautiously fo r -

E d i n b ^ h ^ l T n i i ^ 18 M a r c h ' 3 7 6 3 ) in the possession of the Royal Society of

Τ Ο ^ Ι ο ^ Γ ί Γ Α Γ Ϊ , 376f q U O t 6 d f r ° m ^ 0 / e d · J Y

1 , 7 Below, p. 358.

Γ - V I ° n g ' " P s ^ c a n d the Geometers: Aspects of Associationist Critical Theory" , Modern Philology, X L I X ( 1 9 5 1 - 1 9 5 2 ) , 1 6 - 2 7

226). A n t h r 0 p 0 l ° S l e l n P^Smaùséer Hinsicht, § 59 (Gesammelte Schriften, VII,

T4° Op. cit., p. 149. T41 Op. cit., p. 84.

XLIV

mulated and equally negative, it was based on a collection of da ta and

inductively reasoned: " I t seems . . . to be the common, though not strictly

the universal, law of human nature, that genius fi ts the person who is endued

with it, fo r invention in some one part icular ar t , or par t icular science."142 If

this was the result of observation, Gerard was also in a position to explain

the phenomenon. As he saw it, every kind of genius presupposed a special

structure of the imagination and a peculiar combination of the intellectual

powers. Since there were no universal structures or combinations, universal-

i ty of genius was, consequently, an impossible concept. In this and similar

ways Gerard 's systematic approach scored m a n y advantages over those of

Duff , Young, and others — apar t f rom the fac t tha t Gerard could claim

priori ty for his ideas.

Whenever Gerard wanted to illustrate the mode of operation of the asso-

ciating principles or the influences of habit and passion on them, he took his

examples f rom Shakespeare. Shakespearean dramat ic characters were gener-

ally adduced if Gerard fel t the need of laying bare the more complicated

functions of the mind. Shakespeare — throughout the eighteenth century

"an illustrious instance of the force of unassisted Genius"143 — was thus

among Gerard 's foremost sources in the more general sections of the work ,

and the Essay on Genius became, in the skilful hands of its author, a

pioneer effort in Shakespearean criticism. The application of the laws of

association to the study of Shakespeare's dramas in search for a clue to

difficult features in characters and poetic language is usually credited to

William Richardson, whose Philosophical Analysis and Illustration of Some

of Shakespeare's Remarkable Characters appeared in the same year as

Gerard 's study.144 But Gerard preceded him, and since he has not yet found

the place he deserves among the eighteenth-century students of Shake-

speare,145 this is perhaps the occasion to finally antedate the genesis of

Shakespeare idolatry to the t ime when Gerard delivered his lectures to the

Aberdeen Philosophical Society.

If much has been said in praise of Gerard, it should not be overlooked tha t

his work was also severely criticized by some of his contemporaries. In gener-

al, the early reviews were favourable, and many of his readers seem to have

been struck wi th w h a t the Critical Review called "a beautiful and plausible

theory of the nature of genius », by means of which Gerard had "reduced the

Below, p. 434. 143 Sharpe, Dissertation upon Genius, p. 114. 1 4 4 See Robert Witbeck Babcock, The Genesis of Shakespeare Idolatry, 1766—

1799: A Study in English Criticism of the Late Eighteenth Century (ed. N e w York, 1964), pp. 155ff., and Earl R. Wasscrman, "Shakespeare and the English Romantic Movement", The Persistence of Shakespeare Idolatry: Essays in honor of Robert W. Babcock, ed. Herbert M. Schueller (Detroit, 1964), pp. 77—103.

T4S The omission of Gerard from Babcock's study was first pointed out by Marga-ret Lee Wiley, "A Supplement to the Bibliography of 'Shakespeare Idolatry'", Stud-ies in Bibliography, IV (1951—1952), 164—166.

XLV

various and eccentric operations of genius to a regular system, and investigated the œconomy of the natale comes with a degree of precision almost equal to what can be displayed in subjects the most obvious to enquiry".146 A native Scottish critic, however, found Gerard's book less satisfactory. The Edin-burgh Magazine and Review began by saying that "in this treatise, the author lays claim to nothing of that original genius, and to none of those brillant discoveries, which distinguish the writings of an Aristotle, a Locke, and a Hume. He pursues a less splendid and more humble career, and, following closely in the tract of his predecessors, in the metaphysical walk, endeavours so to combine and illustrate their observations as to establish his own par-ticular doctrine". And continuing for several pages of plain summary, honest criticism, and condescending disapprobation, the reviewer came to the conclusion that Gerard, despite "acuteness and patience in thinking", was not infrequently "guilty of laying down his observations in too general terms", and was therefore "obliged to modify and restrict them in other parts of his work".147

The greatest critical onslaught came when, towards the end of the century, a phalanx of anti-associationist critics was formed. Psychology-ridden though the later eighteenth century was, a number of writers denied the critical relevance and the philosophical validity of the associationist premise, and quite naturally they would rebel against a theory of genius that was so openly founded on associationism as was the Essay on Genius. Although a minority report, the argument against associationism as a reliable basis for criticism was advanced by such writers as Thomas Reid, a member of the Aberdeen group, who had been preceded by another notable writer, Edmund Burke.148 None of these, however, took issue with Gerard. The attack on him was reserved for William Belsham, who published "Observations on Genius" in his Essays, Philosophical, Historical, and Literary (1789).14' Belsham was not in direct opposition to the philosophy and psychology of association; what he objected to was — interestingly enough — the triteness of Gerard's argument. His criticism is worth quoting at length:

What is Genius? A certain writer of respectable abilities, who has treated this subject according to the too general practise of his countrymen, with much parade of systematic investigation, has composed a volume of five hundred pages, in answer to this enquiry; and if we may confide in the positive determination of Dr. Gerard, Genius is only another word for Invention: and having thus ascer-tained the import of the term, he tells us, what I should suppose few persons are ignorant of, that Imagination is that power of the mind to which Invention must be principally referred; and, as if this was a doubtful point, he expatiates largely upon it, and establishes and enforces it, by all the powers of reason and eloquence.

146 X X X V I I I (1774), 329, 241. 147 II (1774), 588, 597. 148 See Martin Kallich, "The Argument against the Association of Ideas in

Eighteenth-Century Aesthetics", Modern Language Quarterly, XV (1954), 125—136. 149 On Belsham, see McKenzie, op. cit.

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Imagination, however, being at length demonstrated in all the forms of logic, io be that faculty which is the immediate source of Invention, the learned Profes-sor enters into a minute analysis of those general laws of association, which produce the several modifications of whidi the imagination is susceptible. We are informed, with an air of mysterious gravity, that the imagination does not act at random in associating ideas; but that there are certain qualities or relations of ideas, which fit them for being associated; and the author, after Mr. Hume, resolves those relations into resemblance, contrariety, vicinity, co-existence, &c. and we are told that habit, and the passions also, have an extensive influence on the associating principle. We are next amused with an account of the modifica-tions of the associating principles, and many other abstruse metaphysical dis-quisitions which seem to me very slightly connected with the main subject, and which, in my opinion, have been much more happily and satisfactorily discussed, though with much less ostentation of knowledge, by Locke, Hartley, and Hume. I see not, for my own part, what light is thrown upon the question relative to the nature of Genius, by a long and tedious analysis of the faculty of association, which operates in perfect conformity to the same general laws in all men, whether they are possessed or not of any extraordinary powers of imagination

or Genius I am of opinion that Dr. Gerard has totally mistaken the nature of Genius.150

With all his expertise in demolition Belsham was not able to advance a theory of genius which could, on different assumptions, compete with Gerard's. "The fact is," Belsham was forced to concede, "that Genius is a term, like many others, too complex to admit of a regular or precise defini-tion." He could contribute a number of valuable suggestions, but to advance the proposition that "by Genius, I mean an eminent and uncommon degree of capacity, including that assemblage or aggregate of mental qualities, usually associated with it"151 was not to offer a genuine alternative to Gerard's argument. The Essay on Genius, though declared high-flown Scot-tish nonsense, could hardly be removed from the position it had meanwhile gained.

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The final judgement to be passed on Gerard is determined by the point of view from which his work is surveyed. The Essay on Genius must appear to contain an old-fashioned, quasi-neoclassical, and ill-contrived argument, if the standards for assessing the merits of Gerard are derived f rom Coleridge and Shelley, on the presupposition that whatever happened in aesthetic theory between 1750 and 1790 was a mere preparation for that august mo-ment when the first of the Romantic poets made their entrance on the literary scene. But it is also possible to see the Romantic movement as the ultimate stage of a tradition in disintegration and to regard its concept of the imagination (being the organ for ascertaining and apprehending the

150 Essays, Philosophical, Historical, and Literary (London, 1789), pp. 383f., 385. 151 Ibid., pp. 389, 399.

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"higher" and "essential" truths) as a deviation f rom the course of European thought. This approach may take away some of the splendour with which the Romantic "revival" is surrounded, but the loss is compensated for by considerable gain. The late eighteenth century is re-instated as a period in its own right, as a period to which the Romantics were profoundly indebted, and also as one with its own critical assumptions and standards.

From this vantage point Gerard's book appears as a superb essay in synthesis. It is a model exposition of what, given the insights and convictions

of the period, could be said on one of its foremost aesthetic and philosophic problems. It reflects the preoccupation of the age with psychological analysis and it gives expression to new analogic modes of thinking. It preserves the origins of the modern concept of originality at the same time that it holds together, in almost classical poise, tendencies of thought and emotion which later were to develop in opposite directions. Like all attempts at balance and inclusion it lacks, perhaps, some of the lustre which more one-sided arguments frequently have. But it is, and it will remain, the best late eighteenth-cen-tury English study of genius. At any rate, we have Kant 's word for i t : "Die-ses Wort [Genie] wird sehr gemißbraucht, und hat Veranlassung zu Unter-suchungen gegeben, die sehr vergeblich sind, und durch die man es ganz genau zu entziffern gesucht hat, was man damit meint. Gerard, ein Engländer, hat vom Genie geschrieben, und darüber die besten Betrachtungen angestellt, obgleich die Sache sonst auch bei anderen Schriftstellern vorkommt."152

,M Immanuel Kant's Menschenkunde (see note 116), p. 233. On Kant and Gerard, see Martha Jane Cauvel, op. cit., and Otto Schlapp, Kant's Lehre vom Genie und die Entstehung der 'Kritik der Urteilskraft' (Göttingen, 1901).

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