The superiority of one mind over another depends on the rapidity with which experiences are thus organised.  The superiority may be general or special:  it may manifest itself in a power of assimilating very various experiences, so as to have manifold relations familiar to it, or in a power of assimilating very special relations, so as to constitute a distinctive aptitude for one branch of art or science.  The experience which is thus organised must of course have been originally a direct object of consciousness, either as an impressive fact or impressive inference.  Unless the paper had been seen to burn, no one could know that contact with flame would consume it.  By a vivid remembrance the experience of the past is made available to the present, so that we do not need actually to burn paper once more,—­we see the relation mentally.  In like manner Newton did not need to go through the demonstrations of many complex problems, they flashed upon him as he read the propositions; they were seen by him in that rapid glance, as they would have been made visible through the slower process of demonstration.  A good chemist does not need to test many a proposition by bringing actual gases or acids into operation, and seeing the result; he foresees the result:  his mental vision of the objects and their properties is so keen, his experience is so organised, that the result which would be visible in an experiment, is visible to him in an intuition.  A fine poet has no need of the actual presence of men and women under the fluctuating impatience of emotion, or under the steadfast hopelessness of grief; he needs no setting sun before his window, under it no sullen sea.  These are all visible, and their fluctuations are visible.  He sees the quivering lip, the agitated soul; he hears the aching cry, and the dreary wash of waves upon the beach.

The writer who pretends to instruct us should first assure himself that he has clearer vision of the things he speaks of,—­knows them and their qualities, if not better than we, at least with some distinctive knowledge.  Otherwise he should announce himself as a mere echo, a middleman, a distributor.  Our need is for more light.  This can be given only by an independent seer who

“Lends a precious seeing to the eye.”

All great authors are seers.  “Perhaps if we should meet Shakspeare,” says Emerson, “we should not be conscious of any steep inferiority:  no, but of great equality; only he possessed a strange skill of using, of classifying his facts, which we lacked.  For, notwithstanding our utter incapacity to preduce anything like Hamlet or Othello, we see the perfect reception this wit and immense knowledge of life and liquid eloquence find in us all.”  This aggrandisement of our common stature rests on questionable ground.  If our capacity of being moved by Shakspeare discloses a community, our incapacity of producing Hamlet no less discloses our inferiority.  It is certain