As our
emblem and coat of arms, I propose a tree mightily shaken by the wind,
but still bearing its ruddy fruit on every branch; with the motto _Dum
convellor mitescunt_, or _Conquassata sed ferax._
That purely intellectual life of the individual has its counterpart in
humanity as a whole. For there, too, the real life is the life of the
_will_, both in the empirical and in the transcendental meaning of the
word. The purely intellectual life of humanity lies in its effort to
increase knowledge by means of the sciences, and its desire to perfect
the arts. Both science and art thus advance slowly from one generation
to another, and grow with the centuries, every race as it hurries by
furnishing its contribution. This intellectual life, like some gift
from heaven, hovers over the stir and movement of the world; or it
is, as it were, a sweet-scented air developed out of the ferment
itself--the real life of mankind, dominated by will; and side by side
with the history of nations, the history of philosophy, science and
art takes its innocent and bloodless way.
The difference between the genius and the ordinary man is, no doubt, a
_quantitative_ one, in so far as it is a difference of degree; but I
am tempted to regard it also as _qualitative_, in view of the fact
that ordinary minds, notwithstanding individual variation, have a
certain tendency to think alike.
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