That the Idea, the true reality behind appearance, is revealed with so much more force and clearness in the productions of art than directly in nature is due to the power of the artist to abstract the pure Idea, the reality, from the actual and the accidental, omitting all disturbing, non-essential qualities. He disentangles that which is real and essential from the confused mass presented in experience. The artist lets us see the real world through his eyes. That he has these eyes, that he knows the inner nature of things, apart from all their relations, is the gift of genius. This gift is inborn, and cannot be acquired. But that the artist is able to lend us this gift, and let us see through his eyes, is acquired. This is the technical side of his art. Primarily, then, the genius is the artist. Scientific {58} genius finds no place in Schopenhauer's scheme. Statesmen are of very different fibre. Their intellect retains a practical tendency, and is concerned with the choice of the best means to practical ends, remaining therefore in the service of the will. The eminent man, who is fitted for great achievement in the practical sphere of life, is so because objects rouse his will in a strong degree, and spur him on to the investigation of their relations. His intellect, therefore, has grown up in close connection with his will. Talent is limited to detecting the relations which exist between individual phenomena, whereas genius rises to a vision of the universal in the individual. The genius has a vision of another and a deeper world, because he sees more profoundly into the world which lies before him. "To compare useful people with men of genius is like comparing building stone with diamonds." Mere men of talent come always at the right time, for they are called forth by the needs of their own age. The genius, on the other hand, comes into his age like a comet, whose eccentric course is foreign to its well-regulated order. Genius appears only as a perfectly isolated exception. Schopenhauer never states definitely that a philosopher may be a genius, but he always seems to assume that he himself belongs to the heavenly company. He gives a detailed description of the genius, even to his physical appearance. With his usual habit of generalising from his own particular case, he endows the genius with many of his own personal characteristics, even to his dislike of mathematics.