He who has vigour may walk to the east as well as the west, if he happens to turn his head that way." Godwin was persuaded that all genius is a mere _acquisition_, for he hints at "infusing it," and making it a thing "heritable." A reversion which has been missed by the many respectable dunces who have been sons of men of genius.] [Footnote B: This very Scotch metaphysician, at the instant he lays down this postulate, acknowledges that "Dr.Beattie had talents for a _poet_, but apparently not for a _philosopher_." It is amusing to learn another result of his ungenial metaphysics.

This sage demonstrates and concludes in these words, "It will therefore be found, with little exception, that _a great poet is but an ordinary genius_." Let this sturdy Scotch metaphysician never approach Pegasus--he has to fear, not his wings, but his heels.

If some have written on genius with a great deal too much, others have written without any.] Not that we are bound to demonstrate what our adversaries have failed in proving; we may still remain ignorant of the nature of genius, and yet be convinced that they have not revealed it.

The phenomena of _predisposition_ in the mind are not more obscure and ambiguous than those which have been assigned as the sources of genius in certain individuals.

For is it more difficult to conceive that a person bears in his constitutional disposition a germ of native aptitude which is developing itself to a predominant character of genius, which breaks forth in the temperament and moulds the habits, than to conjecture that these men of genius could not have been such but from _accident_, or that they differ only in their _capacity_?
Every class of men of genius has distinct habits; all poets resemble one another, as all painters and all mathematicians.