A well-known writer told me that it sometimes happened to him, while he was writing, to forget himself completely; at such times he no longer wrote the truth as he saw and felt it consciously, but transmitted pure and unforeseen inspiration.
Such portions, said this author, are judged by the public as containing the greatest degree of beauty and truth.
When a great orator thrills a crowd, he certainly does nothing more than repeat what is already in the thoughts of each member of that crowd; every individual present had, as it were, in his subconsciousness, the same thought that is expressed by the orator, which was taking form within him but had not yet matured and which he would not have had the knowledge or the ability to express. The orator, as it were, matures and extracts from him that new thought which was taking shape within him; his better part, which after light is shed upon it will have the power to elevate him. But no orator could ever persuade a crowd with ideas that do not already exist in that crowd, and which consequently, are not part of the truth of their age.
The orator is like the centre of gravity, inasmuch as he gives form and equilibrium to the scattered and timid thought of the crowd.
Carducci[50] says "the art of the lyric poet consists in this: to express what is common to all in the form in which he has created it anew and specially in his mind; or rather to give to the thought which is peculiar to himself an imprint of universal understanding, so that each one looking into it may recognise himself."
When we think of the brilliant concept of the medial man, we behold a fundamental and profound principle: the necessity of hybridism and consequently of a profound intermixture of races; all of which goes side by side with the spread of civilisation, and the increased facilities of traveling and of communication between different communities. Connected with these material advantages is the moral progress which leads to a realisation of perfect brotherhood between men that is rendered steadily more possible by environment, and is sanctioned little by little by laws and customs; whereas at the start it was only an ethical or mystical theory.
While the physical formations of the races are becoming merged, the racial customs are also blending and disappearing in a single civilisation, in one sole form of thought. If, at one time, the powerful race was the one united to its territory, faithful to its customs, adhering to its moral code and its religion, all this melts away in the presence of universal hybridism which actually means the birth of a new generation of men and a new outlook upon life.
When we contemplate the morphologically medial man, he seems to stand as a symbol of unlimited universal progress. His realisation seems to demand very lofty standards of morality and civilisation.