Abstract
There's something disturbing about any genealogical investigation of notions that seek to qualify the factors of success in highly non-routine activities that involve invention, creativity and the emergence of the new. The problem of definition is perpetual. We have seen how values such as "grace", " facilita " or "je-ne-sais-quoi" have been invoked as meta-rules that lend their variability to the application of rules by artists, and to the application of criteria for judging and evaluating works by critics and audiences.
In his Flaubert, Jean-Paul Sartre writes of talent that it is an indefinable notion, revealed only in the course of the work, and that it is in fact the success attributed to the work a posteriori that is projected onto the author. Ironically, Sartre likens it to the dormative virtue of opium, as described by Molière in Le Malade imaginaire [13]. Should we simply subscribe to this argument of recourse to mythological or fallacious notions? The history of the arts and sciences offers a wealth of material for attempts to define and locate the factors behind successful creation, and the factors responsible for major scientific discoveries. We retrace some of the salient episodes.
