Third Category People?

I was reading Tom Hart's Blog: http://web.me.com/tehart/Jurassic_Rants/Blog/Blog.html , the section entitled "What would Machiavelli do?"

Machiavelli in The Prince, Chapter XXII, “Concerning The Secretaries of Princes” wrote, “. . . there are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself; another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is the most excellent, the second is good, the third is useless.”

Most of the people I’ve debated fancy themselves in Machiavelli’s first category, and yet they give no evidence of thinking or studying for themselves, which has caused me to suspect that they were in the second category. I’ve regularly asked them who it is they read, who they appreciate, but they won’t admit to anyone. They continue to claim that they think for themselves -- without study or evidence of doing so; which may mean, although I’ve never accused anyone of this, that their intellect is really in the third category.

Lawrence Helm