finity of the problems of his art or science,
he is by no means complete; to himself he must always appear as one who
begins ever anew, one who is ever striving, one to whom a new problem
ever rises from every achieved result. He cannot discharge himself from
work, he must never desire to rest on his laurels. He is the truest
master whose finished performances only force him on to never-resting
progress.

Sec. 111. The real possibility of culture is found in general, it is true,
in every human being; nevertheless, empirically, there are
distinguished: (1) Incapacity, as the want of all gifts; (2) Mediocrity;
(3) Talent and Genius. It is the part of Psychology to give an account
of all these. Mediocrity characterizes the great mass of mechanical
intelligences, those who wait for external impulse as to what direction
their endeavors shall take. Not without truth, perhaps, may we say, that
hypothetically a special talent is given to each individual, but this
special talent in many men never makes its appearance, because under the
circumstances in which it finds itself placed it fails to find the
exciting occasion which shall give him the knowledge of its existence.
The majority of mankind are contented with the mechanical impulse which
makes them into something and impresses upon them certain
determinations.--Talent shows itself by means of the confidence in its
own especial productive possibility, which manifests itself as an
inclination, as a strong impulse, to occupy itself with the special
object which constitutes its content. Pedagogics has no difficulty in
dealing with mechanical natures, because their passivity is only too
ready to follow prescribed patterns. It is more difficult to manage
talent, because it lies between mediocrity and genius, and is therefore
uncertain, and not only unequal to itself, but also is tossed now too
low, now too high, is by turns despondent and over-excited. The general
maxim for dealing with it is to remove no difficulty from the subject to
which its efforts are directed.--Genius must be treated much in the same
way as Talent. The difference consists only in this, that Genius, with a
foreknowledge of its creative power, usually manifests its confidence
with less doubt in a special vocation, and, with a more intense thirst
for culture, subjects itself more willingly to the demands of
instruction. Genius is in its nature the purest self-determination, in
that it lives, in its own inner e