But if, so long as civilised societies cloak the first beginnings of individual human life in mystery, we can only refer the sporadic occurrence of genius to chance, is it any wonder, after the lapse of ages has covered with its mists the childhood of nations, that we should be unable to give any better answer to explain the occurrence of national genius in one race, while its brothers and sisters are not above the vulgar average? On one thing only I insist: let us not deny a great fact because we cannot explain it. Assuming then as ultimate that one nation may be gifted above the rest with genius, let us consider in what the pre-eminence consists. And here again we shall be aided by the analogy of individual genius. The first and most superficial answer is that genius is original, that it strikes out new ideas, new solutions of problems, new lines of research, while the average man can only learn what others have already discovered for him. But a deeper and more careful inquiry reveals to us that absolutely new ideas are of the very rarest occurrence; almost the whole work of human genius consists in assimilating what others have thought, in combining what others have imagined separate, in recasting the form of their thought, and so producing what seems a perfectly new thing, and yet is only the old under a new aspect. No instance of this is more signal than that of a great composer in music. The gift of original melody, as it is called, is rare and precious. The possessor of it is justly considered a genius. But no melody could possibly speak to us except a combination of perfectly well known elements. The only originality is in their assimilation and reproduction. If then we admit that the assimilation of what others have done is a most important feature in genius, we can affirm not only that the Greeks were gifted with this power, but we can go further and say that they settled in a part of the world eminently suited to suggest new ideas and to afford scope for all the combinations which their genius prompted them to make. I have already explained how widely I differ from those who have laid great stress on the characteristics of the country occupied by this race. External nature was the very thing that the Greeks, all through their great history, felt less keenly than we should have expected. Their want of a sense of the picturesque in nature has even been cited as a notable defect. But, though repudiating all this kind of argument, I am quite ready for widely different reasons to lay much weight on the geographical position of Greece. It is an argument which you will not find, I think, in your histories. This people established their home on the confines of two very diverse civilisations, so that they were able to assimilate ideas from both and to weave them into a fabric of their own.