Observations placeholder
Schopenhauer, Arthur - The World as Will and Idea - Imagination and genius
Identifier
014703
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
The World as Will and Idea – Arthur Schopenhauer
The man of genius requires imagination in order to see in things not what Nature has actually fashioned, but what she tried to fashion but could not because of the conflict of her forms, one with another…. The imagination then extends, both in quality and quantity, the intellectual horizon of the man of genius beyond the objects which actually present themselves to him.
In this way an unusually strong imagination accompanies genius, and is indeed its prerequisite. But the converse does not hold, for strength of imagination does not indicate genius; on the contrary, men who have no touch of genius may have much imagination