But this thesis, so evident on moral grounds, will never be proved empirically. On the contrary, we have good reason to suppose that necessity, the mother of invention on the broader scale, will often in the case of the individual talent prove to be the mother of its best results. Goethe required for his development an unchallenged life of ease, whereas Schiller, who never emerged from his life of misery, and who, up to the time when he wrote _Don Carlos_, had not been able to earn sufficient with his pen to buy a writing-desk, required distress to make his genius burst into flower. Jean Paul recognized this blessing of gloomy circumstances when he glorified poverty in his novels. Hebbel followed him along this path by saying that it is more fruitful to refuse the most talented person the necessities of life than to grant them to the least gifted. For among a hundred who have been chosen by the method of sifting, there will be only one on the average who will receive the certificate of excellence in the test of future generations, for the latter use entirely different methods of sifting from that practised by a committee of examiners who expect ready answers to prepared questions. This projects us on to the horns of a severe dilemma that scarcely allows of escape. The consciousness of duty towards the optimum expresses itself only in a maximum of assistance, and overhears the whispered objection of reason that Nature has also coarser means at her disposal to attain her ends; in her own cruelty of selection she often enough proves the truth of Menander's saying, which, freely translated, says: to be tormented is also part of man's education. The fact that Einstein--with certain reservations--favours the giving of help to the selected few, it is for me a proof, among many others, of his love towards his fellow-men, which fills his heart absolutely, all questions of relativity notwithstanding. CHAPTER V THE DISCOVERER Relation of Discovery and Philosophy in History.--The Absolute and the Relative.--The Creative Act.--Value of Intuition.--Constructive Activity.--Invention.--The Artist as Discoverer.--Theory and Proof.--Classical Experiments.--Physics in Primitive Ages.--_Experimentum Crucis_.--Spectral Analysis and Periodic System.--The Rôle of Chance.--Disappointed Expectations.--The Michelson-Morley Experiment and the New Conception of Time. NEXT time--so one of our talks ended--next time, as you insist on it, we shall talk of discovery in general. This, was a promise of special import for me, for it meant that I was to draw near to a fountain-head of instruction, and to have an opportunity of hearing the pronouncements of one whose authority could scarcely be transcended.