From the intellectual point of view also technical competence means
something more than manual proficiency. Just as the master must possess
those moral qualities essential to the integrity of his work, so he must
possess the corresponding intellectual qualities. All the liberal arts
require, as a condition of mastery, a certain specific and considerable
power of intelligence; and this power of intelligence is to be sharply
distinguished from all-round intellectual ability. From our present
point of view its only necessary application concerns the problems of a
man's special occupation. Every special performer needs the power of
criticising the quality and the subject-matter of his own work. Unless
he has great gifts or happens to be brought up and trained under
peculiarly propitious conditions, his first attempts to practice his
art will necessarily be experimental. He will be sure to commit many
mistakes, not merely in the choice of alternative methods and the
selection of his subject-matter, but in the extent to which he
personally can approve or disapprove of his own achievements. The
thoroughly competent performer must at least possess the intellectual
power of profiting from this experience. A candid consideration of his
own experiments must guide him in the selection of the better methods,
in the discrimination of the more appropriate subject-matter, in the
avoidance of his own peculiar failings, and in the cultivation of his
own peculiar strength. The technical career of the master is up to a
certain point always a matter of growth. The technical career of the
second-rate man is always a matter of degeneration or at best of
repetition. The former brings with it its own salient and special form
of enlightenment based upon the intellectual power to criticise his own
experience and the moral power to act on his own acquired insight. To
this extent he becomes more of a man by the very process of becoming
more of a master.

The intellectual power required to criticise one's own experience with a
formative result will of course vary considerably in different
occupations. Technical mastery of the occupation of playwriting,
criticism, or statesmanship, will require more specifically intellectual
qualities than will be demanded by the competent musician or painter.
But no matter how much intelligence may be needed, the way in which it
should be used remains the same. Mere industry, aspiration, or a fluid
run of ideas ma