Curiously enough, those who have the least pretension to sound organisation and rounded development are most often lauded as men of genius. Talent in one special direction developed at the expense of more essential parts of the organism, not an exceptional vitality, secures them this distinction. We should be cautious as to the objects we choose for admiration, since, by a natural law, that which we admire becomes prevalent. Some persons propose to reform the world by means of checking reproduction from unfit types. But this measure would be useless so long as our conditions continue to coin the thing we would destroy. And if we could alter our conditions, the measure would be unnecessary, as the unfit already existing would soon die a natural death or be suitably modified. In some cases the wholesale change suggested would have very bad results, for the children of misdirected geniuses may possibly revert to the former standard and inherit the original genius of the parent without his recent aberrations. Our measures would but serve therefore to check the reproduction of these highly desirable types. In the midst of our black ignorance on such matters, our wisest course is to refrain from violent and irrevocable action. Instead of hurrying to lop people’s angles, it would be well if we were first to try the effect of removing pressure from the spaces between them. The genius is proverbially known by his quick pulse, though the same symptom may be observed in many defective people. Waste and repair alike go on quickly. He is eminently adaptable; he takes any shape. But the great test of the genuineness of the article is his sincerity. Above all things must his higher moral sense remain intact. History has given us one splendid example of the highest type of genius in the great Dutch hero, William the Silent; the man who, to use the words of his biographer, bore the burden of a nation’s sorrows on his shoulders _with a smiling face_. A homeless wanderer with a price set upon his head, poor, friendless and unsupported, this man opposed himself to the trained legions of Spain, the wealth of Brazil, and the tremendous machinery of the Inquisition. The result was the independence of the United Provinces! And the cause of it? Here let us quote Father William’s own words. “Before seeking to conclude a treaty with any earthly potentate,” he writes to his brother Louis, “_I had entered into an alliance with the King of Kings_.” We are not surprised to learn that this man fell by the hand of an assassin, with a prayer for others on his lips. CHAPTER VIII. _IMPERFECTIONS OF OUR SOCIAL SYSTEM._