FOOD AND GENIUS.

Evening Star, Issue 19064, 6 October 1925, Page 6

FOOD AND GENIUS.

More details would bo valued of Sir Arthur Keith’s theory of the relationship between appetite and genius expounded in an analysis of the character of the student habit made by him in the course of a lecture at King's College.! The report, as it has been transmitted, is tantalisingly' brief, even to the point of being enigmatic, where expansion could be wished for, which may he the fault of the cable condensation or of the eminent physiologist himself.

There was an awful rainbow once in heaven: ' We know her woof, her texture; she is given In the dull catalogue of common things. But the material factors which compose what we acknowledge as genius remain still among the mysteries of science. “Capacity for taking pains” does not explain the matter, because that need not amount to genius; and if the definition were acceptable there would remain the question of how that capacity was produced. The savants set great value on the dimensions of the brain chamber till it was revealed, with an irony that would have delighted him, but a few months ago that the brain of Auatole France was unusually small.

That theory then had to be modified, and it was suggested, with a reasonableness that might have occurred before, that the quality of tho grey matter might count for something as well as the mere amount of it. The modification is important, because it suggests that some prehistoric ape-men, proudly placed in that category on the basis of skull measurements, may have boon no more than apes after all. Sir Arthur Keith is quoted as declaring his opinion that the energy in an ounce of sugar would be enough to produce any of Shakespeare’s plays if it found its way to the brain of an equally gifted poet'. Hero the final phrase is evidently the most important. The value of sugar ns a food and stimulus has been long recognised hy athletes and others. Sir Arthur Keith did not suggest, however, that feeding with sugar would be enough by itself for the production of a genius. Some day wo may increase the number of prodigies, in this or the other sphere, hy a nicely calculated system of nutrition; but tho province is one upon the threshold of which knowledge at present lingers. It was remarked by the British savant that in Britain a great number of eminent scholars with no scholarly lineage came from the Highland villages, which, with the fact that ‘ Evan Harrington ’ is supposed to have been written by Meredith in his first days of poverty on the northern diet, may make a case for oatmeal as an incentive to genius. But genius remains more than a matter of food, whatever strain, abnormal, it would soom, in Sir Arthur Keith’s opinion, may be placed upon the organs of the human food system in the process of sustaining it. A theory which was unfolded by Dr Spearman, Grote Professor of Mind fin the University of London, at tho conference of the British Association recently gives the most encouraging description of it wo have yet encountered. The theory, drawn from results of tho ability tests that havo become so common of late, is that every different ability of any person can bo resolved into two factors, of which one is constant and the other varies for different sorts of ability. It is as if each person were endowed with a definite amount of mental energy, comparable in a rough metaphor to tho horse-power of an engine, but capable of being applied,to a number of different machines, some more potent for tho utilising of it than others. Most of tho abilities of every person will tend to bo mediocre —near to the general average of his class—hut there will be gradations in both directions, above and below this average. At tho extreme ends of the distribution will lie a very small number of performances for which the person is on the one side a genius and on the other an idiot. Every normal man, woman, or child, therefore, according to this theory, is both a genius at something and also an idiot at something. Tho idiocy will reveal itself usually, and the problem is to discover at what the person is a genius. Mental tests do not suffice yet for that determination among the vast number of the faculties that havo to be considered; but the 'tests can be improved. Tho great gift, when it has been brought to light, may bo no more than a genius for clog-dancing or something equally unprofitable; but it is comforting to believe that we all possess it. And the aptitudes that are less than genius, Dr Spearman is convinced, are likewise so universally dispersed as to cause him to believe that every unemployed in Britain, with every unemployable, whose debasement to that class hhs been caused by ignorance of his particular talent, might become a treasure in soino great industrial concern if only his strong point could ho discoveicd.