Page 213 - erewhon

CHAPTER XXII:

THE COLLEGES OF

UNREASON—Continued

f genius they make no account, for they say that every
Oone is a genius, more or less. No one is so physical-
ly sound that no part of him will be even a little unsound,
and no one is so diseased but that some part of him will be
healthy—so no man is so mentally and morally sound, but
that he will be in part both mad and wicked; and no man is
so mad and wicked but he will be sensible and honourable
in part. In like manner there is no genius who is not also a
fool, and no fool who is not also a genius.
When I talked about originality and genius to some gen-
tlemen whom I met at a supper party given by Mr. Thims
in my honour, and said that original thought ought to be
encouraged, I had to eat my words at once. Their view evi-
dently was that genius was like offences— needs must that
it come, but woe unto that man through whom it comes. A
man’s business, they hold, is to think as his neighbours do,
for Heaven help him if he thinks good what they count bad.
And really it is hard to see how the Erewhonian theory dif-
fers from our own, for the word ‘idiot’ only means a person
who forms his opinions for himself.

1 Erewhon