In their case the personal factor has overcome the social factor; they have failed in the lessons they should have learned, their own self-criticism is undisciplined, and they miss the mark.
These two extremes of variation, however, do not exhaust the case.

One of them tends in a measure to the blurring of the light of genius, and the other to the rejection of social restraint to a degree which makes the potential genius over into a crank.

The average man is the mean.
Put the greatest reach of human attainment, and with it the greatest influence ever exercised by man, is yet more than either of these.

It is not enough, the hero worshipper may still say, that the genius should have sane and healthy judgment, as society reckons sanity.

The fact still remains that even in his social judgments he may instruct society.