"Our consciousness has as its form not space but only time, so our thought does not advance in three dimensions, like our observation, but only in one, that is, in a line without width and depth." This is how Schopenhauer begins his text "The Essential Imperfections of Reasoning," and in this he sees its most essential imperfection. Reasoning processes something in turn, and in order to deal with one thing, it must leave the others aside. One thought brings another. Something that currently occupies us must soon give way to something else, and if it is not of particular vital significance, we may never find it again. This imperfection often forms the basis for the scattering of our thoughts and their inevitable dispersion. From the form of time and the simple dimension of the series of representations, based on which reasoning, in order to perceive one thing, must let all others go, follows, like the scattering of it, also its forgetfulness.

In his text "On Genius," he sees genius as an "unnatural" state, as a reasoning that did not remain faithful to its natural destination, which is to grasp the relationships of things to the will. The reasoning of the ordinary person is prompted by the will and is directed towards serving the subjective purposes of the individual. Genius, on the other hand, consists of a superior reasoning that has been detached from the will and strives, with its own energy, to comprehend the objective world, without individual purpose, in vain, an intellectual capacity, that is, significantly more advanced than what is required in the service of the will, which constitutes the natural destination of reasoning. Genius is also differentiated from talent, and the other various gradations of intelligence are examined as well.