SOME REFLECTIONS ON GENIUS* By W. RUSSELL BRAIN, M.A., D.M., F.R.C.P.

The Nature of Genius the highest degree, that positive, scientifi- PERHAPS the best justification for cally grounded feeling of worth and value in choosing genius as the subject of a lec- a wide group of human beings. But we shall ture to commemorate Francis Galton only do so in those cases where the value is that he was intensely interested in it, and arises with psychological necessity, out of the his curiosity was so far-reaching that we can special mental structure of the bringer of discuss hardly any aspect of genius without value, not where a stroke of luck or some finding it illuminated by a reflection from coincidence of factors has thrown it in his some facet of his thought. For genius is a lap." Galton later, in the preface to the manifestation of human faculties, and it is second edition of Hereditary Genius, regretted related to heritable qualities, some of which that he chose such a title, and said that on are good, while others are bad. It comes looking back he would have preferred to fruition through a complex interplay of " Hereditary Ability." Thus he clearly nature and environment and it is one of the recognized that the subject of his study was greatest of social values. It is of the utmost in some respects different from genius in the importance to society, therefore, to study popular sense of the term, which is broadly those laws which govern its appearance. In the meaning defined by Kretschmer. Galton the past, and to a large extent even to-day, was concerned with the general laws of the genius has seemed mysterious, but this will inheritance of exceptional ability, which is not always be so. Even to-day we are be- often an important factor in genius in the ginning to see the directions along which popular sense. Kretschmer is interested in research must be pursued if we are to under- the particular psychological qualities which stand it better. Genius is mysterious, like distinguish the genius from persons who many other scientific problems, only because merely possess exceptional ability. The two we do not at present possess the data with approaches are complementary to each which to understand it. other. The word " genius" is surrounded by an When Galton uses the term " ability" emotional aura. We must begin by separat- what does he mean by it? He means ing the uncritical admiration which is often ability to be a judge, a statesman, a poet, a the appropriate response to the works and musician-in other words, to be excep- personality of genius from the dispassionate tionally successful in one of a variety of spirit of inquiry which sees genius as the callings. Are we therefore justified in con- product of scientific laws which, however cluding that some unitary factor underlies complex they may be, have nothing to do these varied manifestations of " ability," with miracles. such as " the ability to acquire and manipu- What then is genius? Galtont used the late concepts" postulated by Terman* as term " hereditary genius " to express " an " the sine qiua non of genius " ? Galton's own ability that was exceptionally high and at work shows that such- a view is too simple, the same time inborn." Kretschmer pro- for he demonstrated that some forms of poses a different definition. " We shall give hereditary ability manifest themselves in the name genius," he writes, " to those men various spheres of activity, but others do who are able to arouse permanently, and in not. Thus judges, statesmen, poets and other literary men appear fairly frequently * The Galton Lecture, delivered before the Eugenics in each other's families. Scientists have Society on February i6th, I948. t Hereditary Genius, 2nd ed., p. viii. * Psychological Approach to the Biography of Genius. : The Psychology of Men of Genius. The Eugenics Society and Hamish Hamilton, p. T. 12 SOME REFLECTIONS ON GENIUS many relatives who are scientists and a factors, i.e. in popular language, as being smaller number who distinguish themselves inherited or at least innate." I am sure that as men of affairs, but few writers and almost this is fundamentally true, but I propose to no poets, artists or musicians among their develop and elaborate it. Burt begins by relations. And the eminent relatives of talking of function and, being concerned with artists tend themselves to be artists, and inheritance, ends by discussing structure. those of musicians to be musicians. Galton The two approaches are complementary, but himself pointed out that Mendelssohn and I am going to consider mainly the physio- Meyerbeer were the only musicians on his logical. The nervous system consists list whose eminent kinsmen achieved success anatomically of units-the nerve cells- in careers other than as musicians. Some which are very much alike, blAt we must not allowance must be made for environment in conceive of the genius as being necessarily the shape of family tradition, but I do not more richly endowed with nerve-cells than think that this can explain the variability of the ordinary person. What is important is the manifestations of hereditary ability in their organization. Nerve-cells are grouped some families and its comparative fixity in into functional patterns, which are best others. called " schemas." Where the genius excels My first aim in this lecture is to try to dis- the ordinary person is that in some respect cover what is the source of these differences, he is richer in schemas. This may mean that and I shall suggest to you that they depend he has more nerve-cells, we do not know, but upon differences in the organization of the it is quite possible for the same number of nervous system. And that will lead me to cells to be arranged either in simple or in another question: since the genius is by complex patterns, just as a child's reader and definition abnormal, and is so by virtue of Shakespeare's works are composed of the an abnormal nervous system, what is the same twenty-six letters; and the normal relationship between the nervous abnor- number of nerve-cells is so large that dif- mality we call genius and those more familiar ferences of organization by themselves could abnormalities we call disease ? account for profound differences of func- tional capacity. Without going into the The Cerebral Basis of Genius question of what is being tested by intefli- A neurologist is naturally interested in the gence tests, and whether the function being cerebral basis of genius. How does the brain explored is single or multiple, there can be no of the genius differ from that of the ordinary doubt that it is a function or a group of person ? Burt* has recently proposed a functions of a highly special kind. The physiological interpretation of intelligence. schemas are those concerned in conceptual " The mental processes essentially required or abstract thought. This is of the essence by intelligence tests," he points out, " involve of some kinds of genius, but by no means of the integration of a variety of perceptual and all. Consider the different parts played by motor activities into a systematic whole-: intelligence in the philosopher, in whose the more the processes tested depend upon work conceptual thought turns round and this integration the closer they correlate reflects upon itself, the scientist who directs with intelligence." He goes on to conclude it upon the data of observation, and the artist that " the individual differences in integra- in whom its role is altogether more obscure, tive capacity revealed by the tests may be and intimately related to feeling. pimarily due to differences in the neuronic The relationship between intelligence and architecture of the central nervous system," the use of words is of special importance for and " finally, being structural, these dif- the study of genius. No doubt thinking of ferences may readily be conceived as being some kind can occur without words, but the larely, if not mainly, dependent on genetic whole of human culture has been rendered * Intelligence and Fertility. The Eugenics Society possible by the evolution of speech. We do and Hamish Hamilton, p. 38. not first have thoughts and then put them I4 THE; EUGENICS REVIEW into words; we use words in 9rder to think, twinkling of an eye. Often would a single or, to be more accurate, the schemas which word enable him at once to comprehend the underlie the use of speech play an essential meaning of the sentence. His memory was part in the construction and evocation of the prodigious." Taking speech alone into con- schemas for conceptual thought. This does sideration, the better the memory the larger not mean that intelligence is identical with the vocabulary and the greater the richness the capacity for speech, but that in the and differentiation of thought. individual as in the history of the race the higher levels of conceptual thought are Inspiration and the Unconscious Mind attainable only in the presence of a highly Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the developed capacity for the use of verbal creations of genius is the extent to which they symbols. Just as intelligence exhibits a wide arise independently of the conscious mind. range of variation throughout a population, This has always been recognized by poets and so also does speech. Indeed, there is evidence artists. Inspiration means the inbreathing that different functions concerned in the use of an impulse from without, felt to be in some of verbal symbols may vary independently, way separate from the conscious personality, and this is especially true of the use of visual and often therefore personified by primitive symbols in reading and writing. Extreme thought. As Goethe* put it: "No produc- degrees of congenital "word-blindness " tiveness of the highest kind, no remarkable attract attention early; minor defects of discovery, no great thought that bears fruit reading, writing and spelling are probably and has results is in the power of anyone; much commoner and constitute permanent such things are above earthly control." The handicaps in intellectual development. At process of creation is apt to be accompanied the other extreme high literary ability by a high degree of emotional excitement, so may occur in families, e.g. the Bronte that often the artist feels possessed, and sisters. These facts suggest that hereditary compelled to work with continuous energy factors may in part determine whether a until he has fulfilled his task. Those who are person's capacity for verbal symbolization is interested in the psychology of poetic subnormal, normal or above the average. inspiration will find it analysed at length in Memory plays a vital part in both speech Livingston Lowes' remarkable book on and intelligence. Many great writers have Coleridge, The Road to Xanadu, in which he possessed remarkable memories. Boswell* traces the sources of the images in The says that Dr. Johnson's memory " was so Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, and shows tenacious that he never forgot anything that how they become modified and fused in he either heard or read.". Coleridge described the unconscious to emerge in Kubla Khan as his own memory as " tenacious and systema- a dreamlike stream of fantasy, but in The tizing." Having read a book in the morning Ancient Mariner subdued and integrated by he could in the evening repeat whole pages creative thought.t The ordinary man has verbatim. It was, as Lowest says, " one of been prone to dismiss poetic inspiration as the most extraordinary memories of which a harmless form of madness of no interest there is record, stored with the spoils of except to the few eccentrics who enjoy omnivorous reading, and endowed into the poetry. But the geniuses of science have bargain with an almost uncanny power of recognized that the inspiration which leads association." to scientific discovery does not differ from Shelleyf is said to have been able to read that of the poet in its nature but only in its for sixteen hours a day. " He took in seven subject-matter.+ An admirable illustration or eight lines at a glance, and his mind seized * Conversatiotns of Goethe with Eckermann. Every- the sense with a velocity equal to the man edn., p. 250. t See also Principles of Literary Criticism, by I. A. * Life of Joh/nson. Birkbeck Hill's edn., vol. i, p. 48. Richards, and The Poetic Image, by C. Day Lewis. t The Road to Xanadu, p. 43. : See The Anatomy of Inspiration, by Rosamund Shelley, by Newman Ivey White, vol. i, p. 96. E. M. Harding. SOME REFLECTIONS ON GENIUS of this is given by Poincar6* in a discussion words must be unusually well-equipped with of mathematical discovery. After describing verbal and ideational schemas, but what kind how he made some of his own discoveries, he of artist in words a man is will depend upon says: "One is at once struck by these subtle differences. The philosopher and the appearances of sudden illumination, obvious poet are both word-users, but how dif- indications of a long course of previous un- ferently they employ them! Galton* said: conscious work.... This unconscious work " An over-ready perception of sharp mental ... is not possible, or in any case not fruit- pictures is antagonistic to the acquirement ful, unless it is first preceded and then fol- of habits of highly generalized and abstract lowed by a period of conscious work. These thought, especially when the steps of reason- sudden inspirations are never produced .. ing are carried on by words as symbols." .except after some days of voluntary efforts The poet, who uses words to evoke images, which appeared absolutely fruitless, in which and images to move and delight, is the very one thought one had accomplished nothing, opposite of the thinker, who must detach his and seemed to be on a totally wrong track. thought from the concrete and purge it of These efforts, however, were not as barren feeling. Can anyone doubt that these dif- as one thought; they set the unconscious ferences between geniuses and ordinary folk machine in motion, and without them it and between one type of genius and another would not have worked at all, and would not depend upon differences of neural organiza- have produced anything. The necessity for tion, partly innate and partly developed by the second period of conscious work can be use? What a supreme development of the even more readily understood. It is neces- cerebral processes of speech must have been sary to work out the result of inspiration, to present in Shakespeare to have provided deduce the immediate consequences and put him with that vast vocabulary from which them in order, and to set out the demonstra- he drew inexhaustibly fresh felicities of tions, but, above all, it is necessary to verify phrase to startle us with their beauty! And them." Here a mathematician of genius is how rich must have been his neural centres describing precisely the same process as went of feeling to have enabled him to respond in to the making of The Ancient Mariner. sympathy with every note of the gamut of I shall not now follow Poincare in his human passion, and find words for every speculations as to the nature of the work done nuance of love and hate, pity and terror! by the unconscious mind in creation, but The poet uses words to evoke images, and merely point out that the creative genius, images to arouse feelings, and he employs whether he be an artist, a scientist or an new combinations of words to shock his abstract thinker, possesses this unconscious readers .into new experiences or to revivify capacity to an extent far exceeding that of old ones. And most poets have believed that the ordinary man. It would seem to pre- these combinations of words should excite suppose a memory capable of retaining all pleasure in virtue of rhythm and rhyme or the relevant data and associative processes of assonance. Anyone who has the smallest exceptional richness by which the data can experience of writing verse knows that the be brought together into novel and fruitful choice of words is only to a very limited combinations in what Galton,t who also extent conscious, and this is equally true of studied creative thinking, called " the ante- words representing images or ideas, and of chamber of consciousness." These uncon- words as pleasurable combinations of sounds. scious mnemic and associative functions Mr. Ivor Brownt makes this point in his depend upon the richness and complexity of comments on these lines of Shakespeare: those physiological dispositions of nerve-cells "Can such things be we have called " schemas." The artist in And overcome us like a summer cloud Without special wonder ?" *. Science and Method, p. 46, et seq. t Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development. * Ibid., p. 6o. Everyman edn., p. 146. t The Observer, November gth, I947, p. 2. i6 THE EUGENICS REVIEW " What a symphony on the ' u ' sound is modify the pattern of events by discerning here! " says Mr. Brown. "How far was in them meanings that elude the less gifted. Shakespeare's knack of pouring high emotion But his task is far harder than that of the into such enchanting melody a consciously novelist or the playwright, for he must take contrived thing ? Perhaps this kind of his characters as he finds them, and by his assonance just bubbled up in him as second superior knowledge and will impose his plot nature. He can never have found the time upon theirs. He is the artist in action. to give each line a day of contemplation." " High emotion " is the purpose of the Musical Genius creative writer who is a poet, novelist or play- Musical genius presents features which wright, and he must therefore possess a rich suggest that it depends upon a highly development of those basal structures of the specific development of the nervous system. brain which are concerned with feeling. As a Musical ability is inherited, and it does not result he is able, as Shelley* said in describing seem to be correlated in inheritance with any his own powers, " to apprehend minute and other form of ability. The most notable remote distinctions of feeling, whether rela- example is of course the Bach family, which tive to external nature, or to the living beings was actively musical for seven (or according which surround us." Surely it is the alliance to Galton, eight) generations. " Of some of this high development of feeling with sixty Bachs known by name and profession intelligence and the capacity for expression all but seven were organists, cantors or town that makes the creative artist. And it is this musicians, many of them of eminence in their which distinguishes Coleridge the poet from professions."* The innate character of the many other Coleridges of outstanding musical talent is illustrated by the ex- intellectual capacity that his family pro- tremely early age at which it is often ex- duced in successive generations. Though hibited, as, for example, by Mozart and these functions are distinguishable in thought, Beethoven, though music teems with infant and even depend upon areas of the brain prodigies. The sense of absolute pitch prob- which are anatomically distinct, we must ably depends upon the inborn organization recognize that in artistic creation they are of the nervous system. Mozart exhibited it integrated into a unity, for reflection en- at the age of seven. Sir Frederick Ouseley riches and subtilizes feeling, and the word at the age of five said: " Only think, Papa is a true creator of thought. As Blaket put blows his nose in G " .t The greatest musi- it: " Ideas cannot be given but in their cians do not always possess it; Schumann minutely Appropriate Words, nor can a and Wagner, for example, did not. Design be made without its minutely Appro- We cannot say what is the neural basis of priate Execution." musical genius without first knowing what I cannot do more than allude to the psy- cerebral activity underlies the enjoyment of chological characteristics that distinguish music in the' average person. Clearly there the great military leader, statesman and must be good hearing and a high capacity to administrator, and which, as many genealo- discriminate musical notes, which is probably gies show, are often inherited. The genius in cerebral rather than auditory.+ But this in these fields must possess an outstanding turn must meet with a responsiveness of the intelligence which operates upon the minds feeling centres, so that certain combinations of men as well as upon their material circum- and sequences of notes cause not only plea- stances. As with the artist, however, it is a sure-or discomfort !-but also other feelings, special blend of feeling with thought that which vary in their intensity and definiteness enables his cerebral schemas to reflect the to * The Oxford Companion to Music, by P. A. Scholes. thoughts and feelings of his fellows, and p. 56. * Shelley, by Newman Ivey White, loc. cit., p. 530. t Ibid., p. 2. t Quoted in Fearful Symmetry, by Northrop Frye, I See Inquiries into Human Faculty. Everyman edn., P. 93. p. I9. SOME REFLECTIONS ON GENIUS in different persons. To this executants add guishes musical genius from musical apprecia- a motor skill. tion remains to be mentioned. No composer It may seem useless to ask why music of genius has been a woman, and this must arouses emotions, and certain sorts of music surely be due to innate and not cultural certain emotions; there is no answer in causes-, for women have not lacked access to terms of thought. If I may speculate for a musical instruments. Indeed, as executants moment I would suggest that the answer is they can hold their own with men on many; to be found in terms of cerebral function, and more women than men appreciate music, namely that in musical people the electrical if one may conclude this from the presence rhythms excited in the hearing centres of the of twice as many women as men at public brain by musical sounds evoke resonances in concerts in this country. Does the fact that the rhythms of the emotional centres, so that men make music for women to enjoy support such people respond to music with feeling.* Darwin's theory* that the biological link The unmusical lack these resonances, either between sound and feeling in music lies in because their auditory discrimination is too the fact that music is a highly developed poor, or because they do not possess the form of the sexual calls of animals ? linkages between hearing and feeling. The The concept of physiological schemas musical genius has both in high degree, and underlying both the conscious and the un- since, unlike the artist in words, he has no conscious processes of mind can be used to vocabulary to learn and needs no experience bring the idiot savant and the calculating of life as his raw material, he comes into the boy into line with the conception of genius world almost fully equipped to exercise his here proposed. These bizarre and limited talent, and has only to acquire the necessary geniuses are freaks endowed with the skill with his hands. schemas of genius in a narrow field, but their Within musical genius we recognize schemas work physiologically and not different kinds of ability. In " pure music," psychologically, so that the process, like as, for example, Mozart's symphonies or artistic inspiration, is unconscious, and the the Brandenburg concertos, " nothing is possessor can give no explanation of how involved but our perception of musical it is done. quality and the delight those perceptions afford."t In opera and the finest religious Genius and Mental Disorder music the composer discovers tunes and har- The belief that there is a correlation be- monies that express and reinforce the tween genius and mental disease is a very emotional content of the words. In what old one, and there are many reasons why it many would consider the most satisfying should have become widely accepted. There music of all, such as Beethoven's last four have been insane geniuses, and many more quartets, the genius of the composer evokes whose behaviour has differed strikingly from in the listener not only delight in the music that which the average person regards as as such, but emotions which can be expressed normal. Indeed, since a genius is by defini- only, and that inadequately, in such terms tion mentally abnormal in one sense, it as mystics use. It would take us too deeply requires only a slight lapse of logic to con- into musical esthetics and too speculatively sider him mentally abnormal in another, i.e. into neurophysiology to discuss the basis of in the sense of insane or at least unstable. these differences. Both insanity and genius tend to excite a One characteristic that sharply distin- somewhat similar emotional reaction, be- cause they seem to be the result of mental * It is interesting that in those rare individuals in whom music causes epileptic attacks the emotional processes which the ordinary man does not response to music appears to be abnormal and to share. Galtont himself thought that " there precede the attack. (See Shaw and Hill, J. Neurol., Neurosurg. & Psychiat., I947, 10, I07.) * The Descent of Man, 2nd edn., p. 572, and The t Beethoven, by J. W. N. Sullivan. The New Library, Expression of the Emotions, p. 2I9. P. 5 1. t Hereditary Genius, 2nd edn., p. ix. THE EUGENICS REVIEW is a large residuum of evidence which points as the 'genus irritabile vatum'-'that tetchy to a painfully close relation between the two, breed of bards '; but to be nervous, even to and," he went on, " I must add that my own be extremely nervous, does not necessarily later observations have tended in the same imply that one is suffering from a nervous direction, for I have been surprised at finding disease." how often insanity or idiocy has appeared I propose to consider separately what Mr. among the near relations of exceptionally Nicolson calls " nervousness," and actual able men." But only statistical evidence can insanity. He first defines " creative writers " settle this question. Havelock Ellis,* as those who " by the force of their imagina- counting every reported case of insanity, tion, or the delicacy of their perception ... including senile disorders, among I,030 have discovered new combinations of experi- British men of genius, found an incidence of ence," and he adds that " the creative writer, only 4-2 per cent, while less than 2 per cent the poet and the artist do . .. possess a were reported to have had insane parents certain nervous sensibility, which manifests or children. The incidence is significantly itself not merely in their receptivity to higher among poets, yet among I50 poets inspiration, but also in certain, apparently born since I700, and included in the Oxford morbid, eccentricities." Goethe* held similar Book of English Verse, only twenty-two, or views, but drew a different conclusion from approximately I5 per cent, are known to them. Speaking to Eckermann about poets have been either insane or so grossly psycho- he said: " Their extraordinary achieve- pathic as to be seriously neurotic or opium ments presuppose a very delicate organiza- or alcohol addicts. In spite of this, poetry is tion, which makes them susceptible to not a dangerous trade. On the contrary. Mr. unusual emotions and capable of hearing Harold Nicolsont has drawn attention to celestial voices. Such an organization in con- the longevity of the thirty-two most famous flict with the world and the elements is easily British poets who flourished between the disturbed and injured; he who does not, middle of the fourteenth and the middle of like Voltaire, combine with great sensibility the nineteenth century, nineteen of whom an equally uncommon toughness is liable to lived beyond the age of 6o and ten beyond constant illness." Is " nervous " in Mr. 70. I have carried this investigation farther Nicolson's sense the same as "neurotic" ? by taking I50 poets born between I700 and If we ask what is meant by " neurotic " we I862 whose work is represented in the Oxford are faced at once by the chaotic state of Book of English Verse. Their average age at psychological thought. Psychiatrists use the death was 70: thirty-two lived to between term in at least four different ways: (i) to 6o and 70, thirty-three to between 70 and 8o, indicate a failure to adapt to life owing to twenty-seven to between 8o and 90, and two certain psychological defects; (2) to describe were over 90 when they died. As far as can various different abnormal symptoms; (3) be ascertained, the longevity of poets does for many different theoretical accounts of the not differ significantly from that of the psychological causation of (i) or (2); and general population. (4) genetically, to indicate an inherited basis Mr. Nicolsonf has recently defended the for the tendency to develop the condition mental health of authors. True, some of explained by (I), (2) or (3). them may have been eccentric, but few have Eysenckt in his recent statistical study been actually insane. Apart from these, finds that the characteristics of neurotic their peculiarities are not symptoms of introverts include anxiety, depression, obses- mental disorder. " Of course," he says, " all sional tendencies and irritability. According creative writers are nervous; even Horace, to their own statements their feelings are that complacent hedonist, referred to them easily hurt, they are self-conscious, moody * A Study of British Genius. * Conversations of Goethe with Eckermann. Everyman t The Lancet, I947, ii, 709. edn., pp. 335-6. t Ibid. t Dimensions of Personality, p. 246. SOME REFLECTIONS ON GENIUS I9 and given to day-dreaming. He* distin- Dickens* manifested some obsessional traits, guishes a factor for neuroticism from a factor but his general mood of elation, associated for introversion, the former operating in the with hyperactivity and broken by short (conative) sphere of will and activity and the recurrent periods of depression, suggests latter in the (affective) sphere of feeling. Let that he too was cycloid. us leave on one side the question whether the No man is a genius because he is a cyclo- symptoms enumerated are due to the intro- thyme, but the association of cyclothymia version alone or to the combination of intro- with the intellectual equipment of genius version and neuroticism. Is there any dif- modifies in a distinctive way the character ference between Mr. Nicolson's " nervous " and the creations of genius. Several such creative writer and Dr. Eysenck's neurotic effects may be noted. The creativeness of the introvert, except that the former possesses genius may show a rhythm determined by higher intelligence and powers of expres- the cyclothymia, cycles of productiveness sion ? Given this intellectual equipment and alternating with cycles of sterility. This has sufficient drive, the writer's sensitive feelings been traced in the life of Goethe by M6bius,t and his moods provide the raw materials who believes that it illuminates even his love upon which his self-consciousness directs his affairs, and applied to musical compositions analytical thought. His day-dreaming be- in the case of Hugo Wolf.+ Secondly, the comes imagination, his obsessions ever and untiring energy and flight of ideas of the again turn his eyes upon those dark places phase of elation may persist as a milder of the mind from which the normal man enduring state without disorder of thought, hurriedly averts his gaze, and the flame of and add greatly to the productivity of the his words distils from his experience the artist, as was the case with Dickens. More- quintessence of his raptures and his agonies. over, the cyclothyme often possesses a rich So I would suggest that those traits which Mr. endowment of feeling which sharpens his Nicholson calls " nervous " in the genius are sensibility to nature and to personal relation- genetically and psychogenetically identical ships, and contributes a characteristic zest with those which we term neurotic in the to his work. I hope to publish an analysis ordinary man. of the influence of mania upon the poetry The form of insanity which is most closely of Christopher Smart, who left one poem, related to genius is cyclothymia, the manic- " Jubilate Agno," written while he was insane, and the better-known " Song to depressive state. Many men of genius have David," written during convalescence. Fin- either been cyclothymes themselves or have ally, the extroversion of the cyclothyme been cycloids with a family history of cyclo- enables him to speak to the ordinary man, thymia. Three poets born in the eighteenth while the introversion of the schizothyme century-Smart, Cowper and Clare-were makes his ideas so personal as to be in cyclothymes who were periodically insane. extreme cases unintelligible. Other noted cyclothymes were James Bos- To sum up, then, I have presented the view well, George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, that genius is usually the resultant of a Goethe, Robert Mayer, who discovered the number of factors. Intelligence is doubtless law of conservation of energy, and Hugo the most important, and this is the dis- Wolf, the composer. Isaac Newtont at the tinguishing feature of those families in which age of 50 suffered from a mental disorder great ability is transmitted through successive characterized by depression and delusions. generations, often manifesting itself in a wide Dr. Johnson was racked by obsessions and range of achievements.§ This is what Dr. compulsions, but his recurrent depression * See Charles Dickens's Letters. The Nonesuch Dickens, 1, P. 79I, and 2, pp. 17, 24, and i69. may mean that he was also a cyclothyme. t Quoted by Kretschmer, loc. cit. t " Manie et Inspiration Musicale," R. Pauly and H. * Ibid., p. 26I. Hecaen, Ann. med-psychol., I939, 97, 389. t Isaac Newton, by J. W. N. Sullivan. § Terman, loc. cit., p. Io. 20 THE EUGENICS REVIEW Johnson* meant when he said: " The true The obsessional scrupulosity of John Wool- genius is a mind of large general powers, man helped to liberate the slaves, and accidentally determined to some particular Charles Dickens's " morbid " preoccupation direction." But there is reason to think that with cruelty and prisons moved his " nor- there are specific abilities distinct from in- mal" fellow countrymen to abolish abuses telligence which, when associated with it, which their own insensitiveness had long decide the character of genius. Power of tolerated. Who can say whether Donne, verbal expression is one such talent, and Swift, Boswell, Johnson, Shelley, Darwin, musical ability is another. Probably many Dickens and Ruskin would have been of factors are concerned, and it is the unique- more or less value to the world without their ness of particularly favourable combinations psychological handicaps ? And would human that makes the genius. culture be the richer or the poorer without Most geniuses are perfectly sane, but its obsessionals and its cyclothymes ? Is Mr. among creative artists, especially, the pre- Edmund Wilson* right when he likens such dominant role of the feelings explains the geniuses to Philoctetes in Sophocles's play closer correlation between genius and mental of that name ? " The victim of a malodorous instability. Here those very traits which in disease which renders him abhorrent to the less intelligent prove a social handicap society and periodically degrades him and may, when linked with high intellectual makes him helpless is also the master of a capacity and powers of artistic expression, superhuman art which everybody has to become a social value, for in the social respect and which the normal man feels he balance sheet of genius the deficiencies of the needs.... The bow would be useless with- individual may be the assets of society. Is out Philoctetes himself. It is in the nature of there not sometimes an overlap between the things-of this world where the divine and psychopath and the saint, the pervert and the human fuse-that they cannot have the the reformer, which makes it impossible to irresistible weapon without its loathsome distinguish them by current psychology ? owner." * Boswell's Life of Johnson. Birkbeck Hill's edn., * The Wound and the Bow, p. 294. vol. ii, p. 437, nOte 2.

PHYSIOLOGICAL ZOOLOGY Edited by Warder C. Allee, the University of Chicago. In the October 1947 nuwber: THE EFFECT OF TEMPERATURE ON THE INTERSEX CHARACTER OF DAPHAVIA LONGISPINA. By KATHERINE K. SANFORD. THE EFFECT OF CERTAIN DEPRESSING AGENTS ON INTRACELLULAR OXIDATION OF INDICATORS IN HYDRA. By C. M. CHILD. RESPONSES OF FISH MELANOPHORES TO CHEMICAL WARFARE AGENTS. By C. ILDD PROsSER, BRUNO VON LUBAcH and GEORGE W. BENNETT, with Technical Assistance of MARIAN F. JAMES. EFFECTS OF TESTOSTERONE PROPIONATE ON SEX DEVELOPMENT IN FEMALE AMBMOMfA LARVAE. By BEATRICE MINTZ. THE EFFECT OF MALE HORMONE ON AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR IN MICE. By ELIZABETH A. BEEMAN. PHtSIOLOGICAL ZOOLOGr is published quarterly in January, April, July. and October Subscription $zo a year Canadian postage 2oc. Single copies $3 Foreign postage 48c. THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS, 5750 Ellis Avenue, CHICAGO Eugenics Review, Vol. 14 No. 1