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In chemistry and nosology, by extending the degree to a certain point, the constituent proportion may be destroyed, and a new kind produced.
I have known _strong_ minds with imposing, undoubting, Cobbett-like manners, but I have never met a _great_ mind of this sort. And of the former, they are at least as often wrong as right. The truth is, a great mind must be androgynous. Great minds -- Swedenborg's for instance -- are never wrong but in consequence of being in the right, but imperfectly.
A philosopher's ordinary language and admissions, in general conversation or writings _ad populum_, are as his watch compared with his astronomical timepiece. He sets the former by the town-clock, not because he believes it right, but because his neighbours and his cook go by it.