Note * — Chapter XXIV · The Normality of the Artist

The theory of value outlined above indicates some of these differences. If the artist’s organisation is such as to allow him a fuller life than the average, with less unnecessary interference between its component impulses, then plainly we should do well to be more like him, if we can and as far as we can. But the qualification, if we can, has far-reaching consequences. Politically it might be better for the community to be organised on the model of ant and bee communities, but, since it cannot, the question whether we should try to make it so does not arise. Similarly, if the artist’s organisation* is so eccentric as to make general approximation to it impossible, or if a general approximation would involve (people being what they are) greater losses than gains, then however admirable it may be in itself, we shall be justified in neglecting it. The case, if it indeed occurs, is exceptional but instructive theoretically. What is excellent and what is to be imitated are not necessarily the same. But it is interesting to note that mentalities to which the usual and ordinary man is not capable of approximating without loss can almost always be shown to be defective, and that the defects themselves are the barrier to approximation. Certain mystical poets are perhaps as good an example of this as any. However admirable the experience of a Boehme or a Blake, of a Nietzsche or of the Apocalypst, the features which prevent general participation in it, the barriers to communication, are not the features upon which its value chiefly depends. It is the inchoate part of Blake’s personality which makes him incomprehensible, not the parts which were better organised than those of every one else.