¶ "He was born ahead of his time" applies oftenest to a man of this type.
He has brains to see what the world needs and not infrequently sees how the world could get it. But he is so averse to action himself that unless active people take up his schemes they seldom materialize.
What We Owe to the Dreamers
¶ Men in whom the Cerebral type predominated anticipated every step man has made in his political, social, individual, industrial, religious and economic evolution. They have seen it decades and sometimes centuries in advance. But they were always ridiculed at first.
The Mutterings of Morse
¶ History is replete with the stories of unappreciated genius. In Washington, D. C., you will have pointed out to you a great elm, made historic by Samuel Morse, inventor of the telegraph. He could not make the successful people of his day give him a hearing, but he was so wrapped up in his invention that he used to sit under this tree whenever the weather permitted, and explain all about it to the down-and-outers and any one else who would stop. "Listen to the mutterings of that poor old fool" said the wise ones as they hurried by on the other side of the street. But today people come from everywhere to see "The Famous Morse Elm" and do homage to the great mind that invented the telegraph.
"Langley's Folly"
¶ Today we fly from continent to continent and air travel is superseding land and water transportation whenever great speed is in demand. A man receives word that his child is dangerously ill; he steps into an airplane and in less than half the time it would take trains or motors to carry him, alights at his own door.
Commerce, industry, war and the future of whole nations are being revolutionized by this man-made miracle. Yet it is but a few short years since S. P. Langley was sneered at from one end of this country to the other because he stooped to the "folly" of inventing a "flying machine."