THE SECRET OF GENIUS

Evening Star, Issue 19994, 11 October 1928, Page 13

THE SECRET OF GENIUS

HOW IT DIFFERS FROM TALENT [Bv Professor .7. Annum Thomson, in ‘ John o’ London’s Weekly, j Writers repeat from one another two familiar statements, that genius cannot bo defined and that, oven it its nature were known, that would not help nian towards its production. But the biologist is bound to distrust both these statements. For a genius is a wellproportioned- largo mutation, and the number of them could bo increased by more careful breeding. ■ In tho realm of organisms new variations are continually emerging. ability is a fundamental fact of me. But many of tho novelties or now departures are quantitative and on a small scale —a little more of this and a little less of that. These may be ot profound importance i.i the c nrse of generations, if tho filter are consistently fostered and the less fit persistently handicapped. This is tho Darwinian theory of progress. NATURE’S LEAPS.

lint besides he small continuous germinal fluctuations there are brusque discontinuous mutations, meaning by discontinuous that they aro not linked to tho norm or average by intergrades. They are germinal steps of a qualitative rather than of • quantitative kind; and biology owes much to Bateson and to Do Vries for the evidence they collected to show that mutations are common. Whereas Lamarck had said: “ Nature is never brusque; ” it has been proved that tho Proteus of Life does more than creep—it leaps. Some mutations, it must ho noted, aro small in amount, not more than minute idiosyncrasies; but others are large newy departures, now patterns, geniuses. Whether they aro large or small, they illustrate in subsequent generations tho laws of Mongolian Inheritance.

A. human genius is the expression of a germinal mutation —a novel combination of promising hereditary factors _ or genes which form a now_ pattern of a not unstable type. It differs from an idiosyncrasy in its magnitude and in usually forming part of a mental inheritance that is at a high level in other or in many other directions. GENIUS AND TALENT.

Talent may bo defined as tho intensification of a mental quality, raising it to tho second or third or even to a higher power; but genius is a new pattern, a power of reaching forward to something quite original. And while genius may bo expressed along one lino only, such as mathematical or musical, metaphysical ciy pictorial, analytical or inventive, it is sometimes associated with great talent in several directions. Tho mathematical genius may bo a talented musician.

Yet there should be no mixing up of genius with talent. For talent is high intensification of quality, while genius is a new pattern of qualities at a high level, Genius is sometimes particulate rather than general, affecting only one lino of activity, but it may be that the parbiculateness is due to_ preoccupation rather than to limitation. One of tho accursed conventional errors that take such an unconscionable time to dio is the notion that genius verges on the pathological. Tho belief is nob supported either by biographical inquiries or by biological principles. A genius is necessarily ahead of his time, and Jus intensity as well as his originality may well make sluggish minds uncomfortable. So it is convenient to tell St. Paul—a genius_ u (hero ever whs much learning doth make thco mad.”

“Till 1 : LUNATIC, THU LOVE I?, AND THE POET.” In ;i pathological mental or neural variation there is sometimes an emancipation or originality which suggests genius, hub there is no intrinsic correlation between genius and instability. Vie have Lomhroso in part to blame tor iho widespread erroneous belief that genius is akin to insanity—ho fell into the common fallacy of selecting his fads. It is to ho suspected that (here is an unpleasant home truth in Professor E. M. East’s saying that the conception of genius as a mental abnormality is largely due to our own inferiority complexes. Geniuses trouble ns, so we regard tbern with an intellectual leer. Mandsley wrote that “ there is hardly ever a man of genius who has not insanity or nervous disorder of some form in his family, but Hast, in referring to the I,(WO great men dealt with by Havelock Ellis in bis ‘ Study of British Genius,’ notes that insanity could 1)0 traced in less than one per cent, of the parents of these distinguished personalities. Very few' men of genius have become insane, though some have been a, bit explosive. The story of geniuses being prone to epilepsy is simply' another yarn. Genius usually means supreme mental health, and, like supreme bodily health, it may readily lead to oyer-exertion; but it is nob akin to the pathological. That would he more true of the sub-health of stupidity. A RECIPE FOE GENIUS. Wo mean hy genius the .highly-en-dowed originality of the millionth man who lifts humanity on his wings—of such men as Archimedes, Aristotle, Beethoven, Burns, Cellini, Confucius, Dante, .Descartes, Eudoxus, Euler, Fichte, Francis of Assisi, Galileo, Goethe, Hegel, Homer, Isaiah (which'). John the Evangelist, Kant, Kepler, Lagrange, Leibnitz, Hilton, Mozart, Napier, Newton, Ossian, Ovid, Paul, Plato—we can’t remember aQ— Raphael, Shakespeare, Teresa—we can’t remember any U except Ulysses, who was a work of genius—da Vinci, Virgil, Watt. Washington, Xavier, and Zeno —for his command to “ h’’" according to Nature.”

Now, no couple can put their heads together and determine to be parents of genius, yet it is nonsense to say that there is no recipe for its production. For, as a genial biologist lias said, it is due.to ‘‘ a congregation of complementary genes of high quality,” and it appears as the outcome of the love-mar-riage ol two talented personalities of diverse gifts. It is entirely independent of “ class,” hut it arises in line slock. It has many degrees, but it is always new. It is occasionally handed on to tiie next generation, but two geniuses hardly ever marry, and rarely do they have children, and still more rarely children like themselves.