nascitur poeta_: some men are born great poets, some small. The cult and
superstition of the genius has arisen from this quantitative difference
having been taken as a difference of quality. It has been forgotten that
genius is not something that has fallen from heaven, but humanity
itself. The man of genius, who poses or is represented as distant from
humanity, finds his punishment in becoming or appearing somewhat
ridiculous. Examples of this are the _genius_ of the romantic period and
the _superman_ of our time.

But it is well to note here, that those who claim unconsciousness as the
chief quality of an artistic genius, hurl him from an eminence far above
humanity to a position far below it. Intuitive or artistic genius, like
every form of human activity, is always conscious; otherwise it would be
blind mechanism. The only thing that may be wanting to the artistic
genius is the _reflective_ consciousness, the superadded consciousness
of the historian or critic, which is not essential to artistic genius.

[Sidenote] _Content and form in Aesthetic._

The relation between matter and form, or between _content and form_, as
it is generally called, is one of the most disputed questions in
Aesthetic. Does the aesthetic fact consist of content alone, or of form
alone, or of both together? This question has taken on various meanings,
which we shall mention, each in its place. But when these words are
taken as signifying what we have above defined, and matter is understood
as emotivity not aesthetically elaborated, that is to say, impressions,
and form elaboration, intellectual activity and expression, then our
meaning cannot be doubtful. We must, therefore, reject the thesis that
makes the aesthetic fact to consist of the content alone (that is, of
the simple impressions), in like manner with that other thesis, which