The Primary Class is composed of the born seers—­men who see for themselves and who originate.  These are poets, philosophers, discoverers.  The Secondary Class is composed of men less puissant in faculty, but genuine also in their way, who travel along the paths opened by the great originaters, and also point out many a side-path and shorter cut.  They reproduce and vary the materials furnished by others, but they do this, not as echoes only, they authenticate their tidings, they take care to see what the discoverers have taught them to see, and in consequence of this clear vision they are enabled to arrange and modify the materials so as to produce new results.  The Primary Class is composed of men of genius; the Secondary Class of men of talent.  It not unfrequently happens, especially in philosophy and science, that the man of talent may confer a lustre on the original invention; he takes it up a nugget and lays it down a coin.  Finally, there is the largest class of all, comprising the Imitators in Art, and the Compilers in Philosophy.  These bring nothing to the general stock.  They are sometimes (not often) useful; but it is as cornfactors, not as corn-growers.  They sometimes do good service by distributing knowledge where otherwise it might never penetrate; but in general their work is more hurtful than beneficial:  hurtful, because it is essentially bad work, being insincere work, and because it stands in the way of better work.

Even among Imitaters and Compilers there are almost infinite degrees of merit and demerit:  echoes of echoes reverberating echoes in endless succession; compilations of all degrees of worth and worthlessness.  But, as will be shown hereafter, even in this lower sphere the worth of the work is strictly proportional to the Vision, Sincerity, and Beauty; so that an imitator whose eye is keen for the forms he imitates, whose speech is honest, and whose talent has grace, will by these very virtues rise almost to the Secondary Class, and will secure an honourable success.

I have as yet said but little, and that incidentally, of the part played by the Principle of Vision in Art.  Many readers who will admit the principle in Science and Philosophy, may hesitate in extending it to Art, which, as they conceive, draws its inspirations from the Imagination.  Properly understood there is no discrepancy between the two opinions; and in the next chapter I shall endeavour to show how Imagination is only another form of this very Principle of Vision which we have been considering.

Editor.

CHAPTER III

Of vision in art.

There are many who will admit, without hesitation, that in Philosophy what I have called the Principle of Vision holds an important rank, because the mind must necessarily err in its speculations unless it clearly sees facts and relations; but there are some who will hesitate before admitting the principle to a similar rank in Art, because, as they conceive, Art is independent of the truth of facts, and is swayed by the autocratic power of Imagination.