Table-Talk · Chapter
On Genius and Common Sense explained
Hazlitt argues that genius and common sense are not reducible to fixed rules but arise from an intuitive, feeling-based understanding of nature and experience.
What happens
Hazlitt argues that genius and common sense are not reducible to fixed rules but arise from an intuitive, feeling-based understanding of nature and experience. He critiques the notion that reason or precept can govern art or judgment, asserting that true taste and genius operate through unconscious impressions and associations. He supports his view with a quotation from Sir Joshua Reynolds and illustrates with examples from physiognomy, acting, and painting.
Themes in this chapter
Intellectual Superiority and Its Disadvantages
Hazlitt critiques the over-reliance on reason and rules, arguing that true understanding often comes from feeling and common sense rather than intellectual system-building.
Criticism and Critical Practice
The essay examines how criticism should be grounded in feeling and imagination, not abstract rules, and uses examples from art and physiognomy.
The Nature of Learning and Pedantry
Hazlitt distinguishes between genuine understanding (derived from experience and feeling) and pedantic adherence to rules or systems.
Characters to notice
- William Hazlitt
Author and narrator; presents the essay's central argument on genius and common sense.
- Sir Joshua Reynolds
Quoted in support of the view that art addresses imagination and sensibility, not rational rules.
- Oliver Goldsmith
Contrasted with Dr. Johnson: Goldsmith had fine intuitive tact, while Johnson excelled in argument.
- Samuel Johnson
Contrasted with Goldsmith: Johnson was superior in argument but inferior in intuitive tact.
- Edmund Kean
Mentioned for his performance as Richard III, where he borrowed a gesture from a boxing match.
- Raphael
Cited for the intuitive design in muffling the figure of Elymas the Sorcerer.
Key passages
“In art, in taste, in life, in speech, you decide from feeling, and not from reason; that is, from the impression of a number of things on the mind, from which impression is true and well founded, though you may not be able to analyse or account for it in the several particulars.”
In all areas of life, judgment is based on feeling and accumulated impressions rather than on rational analysis, even if we cannot explain why.
Central thesis of the chapter: feeling and habit, not reason, guide true judgment.
“Goldsmith was a fool to Dr. Johnson in argument; that is, in assigning the specific grounds of his opinions: Dr. Johnson was a fool to Goldsmith in the fine tact, the airy, intuitive faculty with which he skimmed the surfaces of things, and unconsciously formed his opinions.”
Goldsmith was inferior to Johnson in logical argument, but Johnson was inferior to Goldsmith in intuitive, effortless understanding.
Illustrates the distinction between analytical reason and intuitive common sense.
“When Mr. Kean was so much praised for the action of Richard in his last struggle with his triumphant antagonist, where he stands, after his sword is wrested from him, with his hands stretched out, 'as if his will could not be disarmed, and the very phantoms of his despair had a withering power,' he said that he borrowed it from seeing the last efforts of Painter in his fight with Oliver.”
Kean's celebrated gesture in Richard III was inspired by observing a real boxing match, showing that genius draws from life, not rules.
Example of how true invention arises from observation and feeling.