opinions of others in contempt. He was not even a strong reasoner
as the term is generally used.

Wherein, then, lay that genius which makes him the outstanding Frenchman
and one of the supreme personages of history? Apparently he was
pre-eminent because, more than almost any man who ever lived, he had the
power of harnessing his intuitive processes to his practical problems.

He, it seems, was able to tap that vast, hidden and unsung reservoir of
knowledge which is the epitome of all that the human mind has grasped
and which, though flowing through the subconscious mind of all, is
available in its entirety to but few--and then in all too brief flashes.

The theory of the quality of the human mind, with its every-day, jerky
reasoning powers and its submerged, smooth intuitions, finds its
strongest support in such an individual.

The subliminal mind, psychologists tell us, reaches out into daily life
when the normal intelligence is in abeyance--as in sleep or profound
relaxation. This subliminal (below the threshold) mind is swifter than
the conscious mind and over-reaches it in a flash. It is practically
unerring. It is controlled by laws not yet grasped to any great extent.
It is hidden from life, yet rules it.

Mystics have the gift, in varying degree, of allowing their subconscious
minds to engulf and enfold them. The real poets have written in words
that live because, unknowingly, they have fallen back on and given
expression to the accumulated hopes and visions of the mind of man. The
prophets have simply been those with the power to make their instincts
vocal. Genius, in all its phases, is seemingly but the measure of the
extent to which men cooerdinate their two minds, their instinct and their
reason.

Napoleon, in practically every crisis in which he functioned, struck
those about him as being in a dazed and unnatural condition. He had
those same periods of semi-stupefaction that characterized Caesar, Paul,
Alexander, Goethe, Lincoln and other exceptional men at the time of or
immediately following a terrific use of their mental machinery.

What, then, if, in the final analysis, it should be shown that
Napoleon's greatness lay in the fact that he did not take his own mind
or any other man's mind too seriously?

Transcriber's notes:

Obvious typographical errors corrected.

Obvious Punctuation errors standardised.

Page 333 "It is quite plan that": As per original.

End of Project Gutenber