I turn gladly from the imitations of genius to the thing itself and its true embodiment. But where can I begin? All the qualities that go to make genius are in so intimate connection that to begin with any one of them seems to lead to premature conclusions. All discussions on the nature of genius are either biological-clinical, and serve only to show the absurd presumption of present knowledge of this kind in its hope to solve a problem so difficult; or they descend from the heights of a metaphysical system for the sole purpose of including genius in their purview. If the road that I am about to take does not lead to every goal at once, it is only because that is the nature of roads. Consider how much deeper a great poet can reach into the nature of man than an average person. Think of the extraordinary number of characters depicted by Shakespeare or Euripides, or the marvellous assortment of human beings that fill the pages of Zola. After the Penthesilea, Heinrich von Kleist created Kätchen von Heilbronn, and Michael Angelo embodied from his imagination the Delphic Sibyls and the Leda. There have been few men so little devoted to art as Kant and Schelling, and yet these have written most profoundly and truly about it. In order to depict a man one must understand him, and to understand him one must be like him; in order to portray his psychological activities one must be able to reproduce them in oneself. To understand a man one must have his nature in oneself. One must be like the mind one tries to grasp. It takes a thief to know a thief, and only an innocent man can understand another innocent man. The poseur only understands other poseurs, and sees nothing but pose in the actions of others; whilst the simple-minded fails to understand the most flagrant pose. To understand a man is really to be that man. It would seem to follow that a man can best understand himself--a conclusion plainly absurd. No one can understand himself, for to do that he would have to get outside himself; the subject of the knowing and willing activity would have to become its own object. To grasp the universe it would be necessary to get a standpoint outside the universe, and the possibility of such a standpoint is incompatible with the idea of a universe. He who could understand himself could understand the world. I do not make the statement merely as an explanation: it contains an important truth, to the significance of which I shall recur. For the present I am content to assert that no one can understand his deepest, most intimate nature. This happens in actual practice; when one wishes to understand in a general way, it is always from other persons, never from oneself, that one gets one’s materials. The other person chosen must be similar in some respect, however different as a whole; and, making use of this similarity, he can recognise, represent, comprehend. So far as one understands a man, one is that man.