signifies that here a _genius_ foreign to the will, _i.e._, to the I proper, as it were coming from without, seems to be active. But to speak without a figure: genius consists in this, that the knowing faculty has received a considerably greater development than the _service of the will_, for which alone it originally appeared, demands. Therefore, strictly speaking, physiology might to a certain extent class such a superfluity of brain activity, and with it of brain itself, among the _monstra per excessum_, which, it is well known, it co‐ordinates with _monstra per defectum_ and those _per situm mutatum_. Thus genius consists in an abnormally large measure of intellect, which can only find its use by being applied to the universal of existence, whereby it then devotes itself to the service of the whole human race, as the normal intellect to that of the individual. In order to make this perfectly comprehensible one might say: if the normal man consists of two‐thirds will and one‐third intellect, the genius, on the contrary, has two‐thirds intellect and one‐ third will. This might, then, be further illustrated by a chemical simile: the base and the acid of a neutral salt are distinguished by the fact that in each of the two the radical has the converse relation to oxygen to that which it has in the other. The base or the alkali is so because in it the radical predominates with reference to oxygen, and the acid is so because in it oxygen predominates. In the same way now the normal man and the genius are related in respect of will and intellect. From this arises a thorough distinction between them, which is visible even in their whole nature and behaviour, but comes out most clearly in their achievements. One might add the difference that while that total opposition between the chemical materials forms the strongest affinity and attraction between them, in the human race the opposite is rather wont to be found. The first manifestation which such a superfluity of the power of knowledge calls forth shows itself for the most part in the most original and fundamental knowledge, _i.e._, in knowledge of _perception_, and occasions the repetition of it in an image; hence arises the painter and the sculptor. In their case, then, the path between the apprehension of genius and the artistic production is the shortest; therefore the form in which genius and its activity here exhibits itself is the simplest and its description the easiest. Yet here also the source is shown from which all genuine productions in every art, in poetry, and indeed in philosophy, have their origin, although in the case of these the process is not so simple.