CURIOUS TRAITS IN MEN OF GENIUS

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1678, 27 April 1904, Page 76 (Supplement)

CURIOUS TRAITS IN MEN OF GENIUS

(By Prof. Cesare s liombi’oso.) (Author of “The AEan of Gonius,” Eto.)

1 [All Bights Reserved.] Xf Irb were wished, to shortly sum up the dist inguishing traits of the man of genius, it would suffice to say that these | are sometimes in eaccess and sometimes short of the same traits observed in the man of average attainments. THE GENIUS TAEL—AND SHORT. If, for instance, we begin by noting the height of the man of genius', we are at once struck with the fact, pointed out by Mr Havelock Ellis, that the great majority of such men are to be found in either of two classes—the tallest and the Shortest On the other hand, among men of average mental attainments, the greater number are of medium height. Thus, in this il-atter class, 16 per cent are of low, 16 per cent of high, and 68 per cent of medium stature. Turning to men of genius, we find that the percentages are 37 per cent (low), 41 per cent (high), and only 22 per cent (medium.) Examples of short stature combined -v with genius are Epictetus (who would often say: !< Wtoam I? .A Uittle man."} among the ancients, and George Eliot and A. 0. Swinburne among the moderns. Among great men of tall stature may be mentioned Petrarch, Goethe and Tennyson. An equally well defined statement may be made regarding thin and stout men. Kiernan believed ’hC could prove the absence of degeneracy among men of genius by giving a long list of stout notabilities; e.g., Tictp Hugo, Renan, Lee, Rossini (who was finable to see 'his feet), and Balzac (whose waist could hardly be spanned by three people, putting their hands together). He forgot one thing, however,—that obesity is itself a sign of degeneracy, and we. in our turn, could furnish no less lengthy _ a list of very thin geniuses, such, for instance, as Pascal, Kepler, Voltaire (of whom it was said that ’his body was but a thin veil through which his soul could be seen),; and Giotto * (an example of emasculation almost}. CURIOUS BRAIN PROBLEMS. If , now, we pass to the examination of brain capacity and? we find that the majority of men of genius— Volta, Petrarch, bebbt, for instance — possessed a very high brain capacity. Ljebon, -on examining the skulls of twenty-six French men of genius, found that they yielded an average capacity of 1732 cubic centimetres.—a little over 200 in excess of the average: this is the

more remarkable from the fact that several individuals, chosen from among the twenty-six, had only a medium capacity, e.g., Desoartes. Tissot and Hoffmann,. Of brains of trwejlve famous Germans, studied by Wagner and Buohoff, eight (had either a decidedly low or a very high capacity,—Bollinger 1207 and Liebig 1352, for instance. On the other hand one had long believed that a great development of brain circumvolution, together with symmetrical beauty of the face, were general characteristics of the man of genius; but here also the exceptions are numerous, an extnaodrinary emaciation of the skull being frequently noticeable. Examples of this class are Bertillon, Gambetta, and Liebig (who possessed many irregularities of a,n hereditary nature). We have not dealt with inflammation of the brain membranes, shotwn in such a case 'as Donizetti’s; i and we may contrast with the facial I beauty and harmonious skull form of I Helmottz, Dante, and Schopenhauer, the abnormally large features (hereditary) of such men as Skoda and Nobilis who possessed almost idiotic looks. It is interesting to note that 'Clement VI is said to have acquired genius as a result of a blow which his skull received in his childhood. (The Australian novelist, Marcus Clarke, had a similar experience.) A mark of creative genius, of more j general occurence, miisoneism (or the re- | Jection of the discovery or work of ! others) is often the most terrible obstacle to progress. Napoleon would | have nothing to do with steam, and j Richelieu threw into a lunatic !asyilnm 1 the man who discovered it: Voltaire • denied the value of fossils to science; Darwin jeered at hypnotism; and Virchow absolutely denied Darwinism and criminal anthropology. GREAT MEN AND FORGETFULNESS.. . But it is of other phenomena, mote i- important still in considering this question, that I specially wish to speak: amnesia—or forgetfulness—, hyperaesthesia —or morbid excess of sensibility . f a nd above all of the slowness and of the extreme quickness (as the case may be) of personal sensibility that one , notes among* men of genius. Lx the case of the eleven men of genius I have mysielf studied, eight had a more delicate sensibility than the average, one only gave the maximum,..t wo the minimum, whan t est ed under •ordinary cir- : cumstanoes. I Amnesia is very common with , the man i of genius. Newton one day,r, rpnmed his niece’s finger into his pipe; Thcheretl .'once forgot his own name. The Archbishop of Munster, seeing in the door of his visitors’ room a notice which said: “Tko master of this house is out,” re-

mained there, awaiting 'his own return! Hyperaesthesia is not lees f requent. Musset, GoncO'Uxt, Flaubert possessed such a delicate and developed sense hearing that street noises and the striking of clocks wero absolutely unsupportable to them. Baudelaire had a most delicate sense (of smell. The painter Francia died from happiness, in the street, on seeing a picture by Raphael. i EARLY DEATHS AMONG POETS. | Mr W. Thayer, in an article in the “Forum,” wishing to show the longevity of Anglo-Saxon men of genius, durthe XIX century, is nevertheless unable to deny the premature death of many poets. Of forty-six cases, showing an average age of 66 years, nine poets died between the ages of 26 and 37, —Byron j Shelley, Keats, Leopardi and Poe among ; them. Of thirty-nine artists and sculp- j tors, the average age attained being 66, ' one, Fortuny, died young, aged 36. Of thirty musicians, with an average age of 62 years, Auber was 89 years old when (he died, and Verdi 88: whilst four others died young—Bellini, Bizet, j S'chubert, Mendelssohn. | Certain men of genius have retained their physical activity to a most advanced age; Humboldt, until he was 80 years old, and Verdi and Goethe (who wrote Faust when he was 81). Biacoaria, on the contrary, ceased all work when 32 years oild; many more, 0s Leonard! da Vinci and Flaubert, left their work incomplete through their slowness of execution. Precocity is also a mark of genius. D'amte wrote a sonnet to Beatrice when he 'Was 9 years old, Mozart gave a concert at 6, Tasso wrote verses at 10, and Pascal at 13. But it is, on the other hand true that some men have been backward. Alfieri, Wren, Humboldt, Linnaeus, Flaubert, Domcnichinoi (whom his friends called “the great bullock”), for instance. HATRED OF MUSIC. Numerous great thinkers, in particular men of genius in literature philosophy, history, had a veritable horror of music. Johnson, Victor Hugo, ‘Catherine 11., Zola, and Napoleon preferred the simplest music; Fomtemelfe could not unstand four things: the wodld, music, women) and dancing; according to Gautier, music is the worst of noises. But to al these outspoken .enemies of music we could oppose Aristotle, who considered it otnie 'of the most jtowerf ul of moral educational agencies j wd;. among recent authors, 'Baudot, Banyiii, Goethe,. Carlyle (according to whop, music is the language of angels), .Moure (who perfected his poems by setting them to music, and said (his words were poor in comparison), and Buskin (who described music as “the nearest at hand, the most ]

delicate and the most perfect of all bodily pleasures; it is the only one which is equally helpful to all the ages of men . . .”) Wo are now, then, in a position to conclude, after studying aid the particular characteristics of men of genius, from their height and their personal sensibility to their views on music, that these Characteristics, whilst following a regular plan, possess nevertheless -lines of demarcation in one sense perfectly opposed. In the case of epilepsy this is altogether so-, for one notes the most singular contrasts in height, brain capacity, intellectual and nervous energy, the whcile yielding a majority in short stature, undersized cranium, and dullness of intellect.