Among foreign metaphysicians, the two who come nearest to the above are Leibnitz and Schelling. Leibnitz was, like Mill, a prodigy of youthful learning, and began from the age of seventeen to write on a variety of subjects. His bent to philosophical reflection betrayed itself at the age of fifteen, when, at the University of Leipsic, he was entertaining the idea of rejecting the scholastic doctrine of "substantial forms." His first philosophical publication was the "Bachelor's Dissertation," which falls in the eighteenth year. But, after this, Leibnitz abandoned philosophy in favor of politics; so that he did not attain the rank of a great philosophical teacher till the age of forty-four. Schelling, if a less remarkable example of omnivorous learning than Leibnitz, is a more signal instance of precocious metaphysical constructiveness. He graduated at the early age of sixteen, taking "Myths" as the theme of his dissertation. He had written three philosophical works before the completion of his twentieth year.
Following the same plan as before, I have tried to determine the proportion of the precocious to the non-precocious among thinkers. Taking thirty-seven eminent representatives, I find that twenty-five, or about two thirds, appear to have shown a marked philosophical inquisitiveness before the age of twenty.
If now we go on to ask at what age philosophic production begins, we arrive at the following results: Among thirty-six, two wrote on philosophical subjects before the age of twenty; eighteen between twenty and thirty; eight between thirty and forty; and eight after forty.
Finally, with respect to the age at which greatness reveals itself in a remarkable achievement, we gather the following data: Out of thirty-five, three distinguished themselves before twenty-five; four between this date and thirty; fourteen between thirty and forty; six between forty and fifty; and eight after fifty.
Of those who achieved philosophic distinction after fifty we have no less illustrious names than Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, and Leibnitz. It may be added that Kant very nearly falls into this category, his first independent treatise appearing at the age of forty-six. The lateness of achievement in many cases is connected with the circumstance that other subjects, as mathematics, have been taken up before philosophy.
In presenting these statistics of genius, I am not unmindful of the defects of the evidence. Thus, for example, there are the gaps in the record of the childhood of great men which all the industry of recent biographical research has not been able to fill up.[1] Even where we do know something of the early life, we can not be sure that we have
- ↑ I have found the determination of dates in the case of the Italian painters particularly difficult for this reason. Old Vasari, in his "Lives," is very chary of figures, and, when he does venture on a date, he is very far from trustworthy.
