They can perceive no distinction between the poetical and the mathematical genius; and they conclude that a man of genius, possessing a general capacity, may become whatever he chooses, but is determined by his first acquired habit to be what he is.[A] In substituting the term _capacity_ for that of _genius_, the origin or nature remains equally occult.

How is it acquired, or how is it inherent?
To assert that any man of genius may become what he wills, those most fervently protest against who feel that the character of genius is such that it cannot be other than it is; that there is an identity of minds, and that there exists an interior conformity as marked and as perfect as the exterior physiognomy.

A Scotch metaphysician has recently declared that "Locke or Newton might have been as eminent poets as Homer or Milton, had they given themselves early to the study of poetry." It is well to know how far this taste will go.

We believe that had these philosophers obstinately, against nature, persisted in the attempt, as some have unluckily for themselves, we should have lost two great philosophers, and have obtained two supernumerary poets.[B] It would be more useful to discover another source of genius for philosophers and poets, less fallible than the gratuitous assumptions of these theorists.

An adequate origin for peculiar qualities in the mind may be found in that constitutional or secret propensity which adapts some for particular pursuits, and forms the _predisposition_ of genius.
[Footnote A: Johnson once asserted, that "the supposition of one man having more imagination, another more judgment, is not true; it is only one man has _more mind_ than another.