Huarte postulates a third kind of wit, “by means of which some, withoutart or study, speak such subtle and surprising things, yet true, that were neverbefore seen, heard, or writ, no, nor ever so much as thought of.” The referencehere is to true creativity, an exercise of the creative imagination in ways that gobeyond normal intelligence and may, he felt, involve “a mixture of madness.”

Huarte goes on to distinguish three levels of intelligence. The lowest of theseis the “docile wit,” which satisfies the maxim that he, along with Leibnitz andmany others, wrongly attributes to Aristotle, namely that there is nothing inthe mind that is not simply transmitted to it by the senses. The next higherlevel, normal human intelligence, goes well beyond the empiricist limitation:it is able to “engender within itself, by its own power, the principles on whichknowledge rests.”

Wit (Ingenio) is a generative power.

the writings of the Spanish physician JuanHuarte, who in the late sixteenth century published a widely translated studyon the nature of human intelligence. In the course of his investigations, Huartecame to wonder at the fact that the word for “intelligence,” ingenio, seems tohave the same Latin root as various words meaning “engender” or “generate.”