It stands to reason that this infinite knowledge does not include theories and systems which have been formulated by science from facts, neither the history of the Spanish war of succession nor experiments in dia-magnetism.
The artist does not acquire his knowledge of the colours reflected on water by cloudy or sunny skies, by a course of optics, any more than it requires a deep study of characterology to judge other men. But the more gifted a man is, the more he has studied on his own account, and the more subjects he has made his own.
The theory of special genius, according to which, for instance, it is supposed that a musical “genius” should be a fool at other subjects, confuses genius with talent. A musician, if truly great, is just as well able to be universal in his knowledge as a philosopher or a poet. Such an one was Beethoven. On the other hand, a musician may be as limited in the sphere of his activity as any average man of science. Such an one was Johann Strauss, who, in spite of his beautiful melodies, cannot be regarded as a genius if only because of the absence of constructive faculty in him. To come back to the main point; there are many kinds of talent, but only one kind of genius, and that is able to choose any kind of talent and master it. There is something in genius common to all those who possess it; however much difference there may seem to be between the great philosopher, painter, musician, poet, or religious teacher. The particular talent through the medium of which the spirit of a man develops is of less importance than has generally been thought. The limits of the different arts can easily be passed, and much besides native inborn gifts have to be taken into account. The history of one art should be studied along with the history of other arts, and in that way many obscure events might be explained. It is outside my present purpose, however, to go into the question of what determines a genius to become, say, a mystic, or, say, a great delineator.
From genius itself, the common quality of all the different manifestations of genius, woman is debarred. I will discuss later as to whether such things are possible as pure scientific or technical genius as well as artistic and philosophical genius. There is good reason for a greater exactness in the use of the word. But that may come, and however clearly we may yet be able to describe it woman will have to be excluded from it. I am glad that the course of my inquiry has been such as to make it impossible for me to be charged with having framed such a definition of genius as necessarily to exclude woman from it.