The Value of Genius
There are but few persons, in comparison with the whole of mankind, whose experiments, if adopted by others, would be likely to be an improvement on established practice. But these few are the salt of the earth; without them human life would become a stagnant pool. Not only is it they who introduce good things which did not before exist; it is they who keep the life in those which already exist. If there were nothing new to be done, would human intellect cease to be necessary? Would it be a reason why those who do the old things should forget why they are done, and do them like cattle, not like human beings? There is only too great a tendency in the best beliefs and practices to degenerate into the mechanical; and unless there were a succession of persons whose ever-recurring originality prevents the grounds of those beliefs and practices from becoming merely traditional, such dead matter would not resist the smallest shock from any thing really alive, and there would be no reason why civilization should not die out, as in the Byzantine Empire.
Persons of genius, it is true, are, and are always likely to be, a small minority, but in order to have them, it is necessary to preserve the soil in which they grow. Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom. Persons of genius are more individual than any other people—less capable, consequently, of fitting themselves, without hurtful compression, into any of the small numbers of moulds which society provides in order to save its members the trouble of forming their own characters. If from timidity they consent to be forced into one of these moulds, and to let all that part of themselves which cannot expand under the pressure remain unexpanded, society will be little the better for their genius. If they are of a strong character, and break their fetters, they become a mark for the society which has not succeeded in reducing them to commonplace to point at with solemn warning as “wild,” “erratic,” and the like; much as if one should complain of the Niagara River for not flowing smoothly between its banks like a Dutch canal.
I insist thus emphatically on the importance of genius, and the necessity of allowing it to unfold itself freely both in thought and in practice, being well aware that no one will deny the position in theory, but knowing also that almost everyone, in reality, is totally indifferent to it. People think genius a fine thing if it enables a man to write an exciting poem, or paint a picture. But in its true sense, that of originality in thought and action, though no one says that it is not a thing to be admired, nearly all, at heart, think they can do very well without it. Unhappily this is too natural to be wondered at. Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of. They cannot see what it is to do for them. How should they? The first service which originality has to render them is that of opening their eyes; which being once fully done, they would have a chance of being themselves original.
—John Stuart Mill.
Alternate Reading: Romans 14:13-23.