every man who is devoted to the purely objective
contemplation of the world (and it is this that is meant by the
knowledge of ideas) completely loses sight of his will and its
objects, and pays no further regard to the interests of his own
person, but becomes a pure intelligence free of any admixture of will.

Where, then, devotion to the intellect predominates over concern for
the will and its objects, it shows that the man's will is not the
principal element in his being, but that in proportion to his
intelligence it is weak. Violent desire, which is the root of all
vice, never allows a man to arrive at the pure and disinterested
contemplation of the world, free from any relation to the will, such
as constitutes the quality of genius; but here the intelligence
remains the constant slave of the will.

Since genius consists in the perception of ideas, and men of genius
_contemplate_ their object, it may be said that it is only the eye
which is any real evidence of genius. For the contemplative gaze has
something steady and vivid about it; and with the eye of genius it is
often the case, as with Goethe, that the white membrane over the pupil
is visible. With violent, passionate men the same thing may also
happen, but it arises from a different cause, and may be easily
distinguished by the fact that the eyes roll. Men of no genius at all
have no interest in the idea expressed by an object, but only in the
relations in which that object stands to others, and finally to their
own person. Thus it is that they never indulge in contemplation, or
are soon done with it, and rarely fix their eyes long upon any
object; and so their eyes do not wear the mark of genius which I have
described. Nay, the regular Philistine does the direct opposite of
contemplating--he spies. If he looks at anything it is to pry into
it; as may be specially observed when he screws up his eyes, which he
frequently does, in order to see the clearer. Certainly, no real man
of genius ever does this, at least habitually, even though he is
short-sighted.

What I have said will sufficiently illustrate the conflict between
genius and vice. It may be, however, nay, it is often the case, that
genius is attended by a strong will; and as little as men of genius
were ever consummate rascals, were they ever perhaps perfect saints
either.

Let me explain. Virtue is not exactly a positive weakness of the will;
it is, rather, an intentional restraint imposed upon i