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48
Hereditary Genius
Caesar, Marlborough, Cromwell, the Princes of Nassau, Wellington, and
Napoleon. Precisely the same remarks are applicable to demagogues.
Those who rise to the surface and play a prominent part in the transactions
of a troubled period, must have courage and force of character, but they
need not have high intellectual powers. Nay, it is more appropriate that the
intellects of such men should be narrow and one-sided, and their
dispositions moody and embittered. These are not qualities that lead to
eminence in ordinary times. Consequently, the families of such men, are
mostly unknown to fame. But the kinships of popular leaders of the highest
order, as of the two Gracchi, of the two Arteveldes, and of Mirabeau, are
illustrious.
I may mention a class of cases that strikes me forcibly as a proof, that a
sufficient power of command to lead to eminence in troublous times, is
much less unusual than is commonly supposed, and that it lies neglected in
the course of ordinary life. In beleaguered towns, as for example during the
great Indian mutiny, a certain type of character very frequently made its
appearance. People rose into notice who had never previously distinguished
themselves, and subsided into their former way of life, after the occasion
for exertion was over; while during the continuance of danger and misery,
they were the heroes of their situation. They were cool in danger, sensible
in council, cheerful under prolonged suffering, humane to the wounded and
sick, encouragers of the faint-hearted. Such people were formed to shine
only under exceptional circumstances. They had the advantage of
possessing too tough a fibre to be crushed by anxiety and physical misery,
and perhaps in consequence of that very toughness, they required a
stimulus of the sharpest kind, to goad them to all the exertions of which they
were capable. The result of what I have said, is to show that in
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