Again, although it must be admitted that man is the crown and compendium of Nature, uniting in himself most of the excellences of the lower kingdoms with others exclusively his own; yet it cannot be denied, either, that the vast majority of these “crowns” of Nature are so full of flaws in workmanship, and have lost so many of their jewels, that the sight of them is anything but exhilarating. Indeed, it is obvious that the average plant and the average animal are, _in their way_, far superior to the average man, in beauty, health, vitality; natural selection, which has been arrested in man, having made them so. No wonder, then, that some of the greatest minds have turned away from mankind, and devoted all their thoughts and energies to the world of “things” and ideas. Goethe and other men of genius have often been accused of being cold and unsympathetic, because they refused to shape their conduct so as to please the people with whom they chanced to come into contact. Had they wasted their affections and sympathies on their commonplace admirers and acquaintances, instead of bestowing them on art and science, on the great ideas that teemed in their brains, we should now be without many of those glorious works which could never have been created had not their authors ignored personal relations for the time being, and bestowed all their warmest impersonal affections on their ideas. As compared with men of genius, women have achieved but little that can lay claim to immortal fame; and the principal reason of this is that their affections are apt to be too exclusively personal. A girl will assiduously practice on the piano as long as that will assist her in fascinating her suitors. But how many women, outside the ranks of teachers, continue their practice after marriage, from the _impersonal_ love of music itself? Needless to say they have no time; for every hour devoted to emotional refreshment strengthens the nerves for two hours of extra labour. As regards the love of Nature, woman is, indeed, artificially hampered. She may botanise to some extent, but she cannot, as a rule, indulge in those solitary walks in a virgin forest which alone can establish a deep communion with Nature. If accompanied by friend, brother, husband, or lover, her thought will inevitably retain a human tinge. No doubt there is something comic in the ardent affection with which a German professor hugs his pet theory regarding the Greek dative, or the origin of honey in flowers, and in the ferocity with which he will defend it against his best friends, if they happen to oppose it. But such complete devotion to abstract crotchets is absolutely necessary to the discovery of original ideas: and as women are rarely able or willing to emerge from the haunts of personal emotion, this explains why they have achieved greatness in hardly anything but novel-writing, which is chiefly concerned with personal emotions. PERSONAL AFFECTIONS