O
What science brings forth, can be brought forth through genius, but it is not
necessarily engendered through this. It therefore is and remains problematic
in science, i.e., one can, indeed, always say definitely where it is not present,
but never where it is. There are but few indications which allow us to infer
genius in the sciences; (that one has to infer it is already evidence of the
peculiarity of the matter). It is, for example, assuredly not present, where a
whole, such as a system, arises piecemeal and as though by putting together.
One would thus have to suppose, conversely, that genius is present, where the
idea of the whole has manifestly preceded the individual parts. For since the
idea of the whole cannot in fact become clear save through its development in
the individual parts, while those parts, on the other hand, are possible only
through the idea of the whole, there seems to be a contradiction here which is
possible only through an act of genius, i.e., an unexpected concurrence of the
unconscious with the conscious activity.
F.W.J. Schelling
