apropos composition

I ran across this quote by William Clifford, mathematician and
philosopher:

"There is no scientific discoverer, no poet, no painter, no musician,
who will not tell you that he found ready made his discovery or poem or
picture - that it came to him from outside, and that he did not
consciously create it from within."

--
John Starrett
"We have nothing to fear but the scary stuff."
http://www-math.cudenver.edu/~jstarret/microtone.html