, called forth two replies,--one
by Mr. Grant Allen, entitled the 'Genesis of Genius,' in the Atlantic
Monthly, vol. xlvii. p. 351; the other entitled 'Sociology and Hero
Worship,' by Mr. John Fiske, _ibidem_, p. 75. The article which
follows is a rejoinder to Mr. Allen's article. It was refused at the
time by the Atlantic, but saw the day later in the Open Court for
August, 1890. It appears here as a natural supplement to the foregoing
article, on which it casts some explanatory light.

Mr. Allen's contempt for hero-worship is based on very simple
considerations. A nation's great men, he says, are but slight
deviations from the general level. The hero is merely a special
complex of the ordinary qualities of his race. The petty differences
impressed upon ordinary Greek minds by Plato or Aristotle or Zeno, are
nothing at all compared with the vast differences between every Greek
mind and every Egyptian or Chinese mind. We may neglect them in a
philosophy of history, just as in calculating the impetus of a
locomotive we neglect the extra impetus given by a single piece of
better coal. What each man adds is but an infinitesimal fraction
compared with what he derives from his parents, or {256} indirectly
from his earlier ancestry. And if what the past gives to the hero is
so much bulkier than what the future receives from him, it is what
really calls for philosophical treatment. The problem for the
sociologist is as to what produces the average man; the extraordinary
men and what they produce may by the philosophers be taken for granted,
as too trivial variations to merit deep inquiry.

Now, as I wish to vie with Mr. Allen's unrivalled polemic amiability
and be as conciliatory as possible, I will not cavil at his facts or
try to magnify the chasm between an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Napoleon
and the average level of their respective tribes. Let it be as small
as Mr. Allen thinks. All that I object to is that he should think the
mere _size_ of a difference is capable of deciding whether that
difference be or be not a fit subject for philosophic study. Truly
enough, the details vanish in the bird's-eye view; but so does the
bird's-eye view vanish in the details. Which is the right point of
view for philosophic vision? Nature gives no reply, for both points of
view, being equally real, are equally natural; and no one natural
reality _per se_ is any more emphatic than any other. Accentuation,
foreground, and