62 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



mental receptivity is over no further development takes place. The 

 second group, comprising those children who are mostly indifferent to 

 ordinary school learning but are absorbed in their own lines of thought, 

 certainly contains a very large number of individuals destined to attain 

 intellectual eminence. They by no means impress people by their 

 'precocity'; Scott, occupied in building up romances, was a 'dunce'; 

 Hume, the youthful thinker, was described by his mother as 'un- 

 common weak-minded.' Yet the individuals of this group are often 

 in reality far more 'precocious,' further advanced along the line of 

 their future activities, than the children of the first group. It is 

 true that they may be divided into two classes, those who from the 

 first have divined the line of their later advance, and those who, like 

 the youthful Diderot, are only restlessly searching and exploring; but 

 both alike have really entered on the path of their future progress. 

 The third group, including those children who are only noted for 

 their physical energy, is the smallest. In these cases some powerful 

 external impression — a severe illness, an emotional shock, contact 

 with some person of intellectual eminence — serves to divert the physi- 

 cal energy into mental channels. In those fields of eminence in 

 which moral qualities and force of character count for much, such as 

 statesmanship and generalship, this course of development seems to 

 be a favorable one, but in more purely intellectual fields it scarcely 

 seems to lead very often to the finest results. On the whole, it is 

 evident that 'precocity' is not a very valuable or precise conception as 

 applied to persons of intellectual eminence. The conception of physi- 

 cal precocity is fairly exact and definite. It indicates an earlier than 

 average attainment of the ultimate growth and maturity. But we are 

 by no means warranted in asserting that the man of intellectual ability 

 reaches his full growth and maturity earlier than the average man. 

 And even when as a child he is compared with other children, his 

 marked superiority along certain lines may be apparently more than 

 balanced by his apparent inferiority along other lines. It is no doubt 

 true that, in a vague use of the word, genius is very often indeed 

 'precocious'; but it is evident that this statement is almost meaning- 

 less unless we use the word 'precocity' in a carefully defined manner. 

 It would be better if we asserted that genius is in a large number 

 of eases mentally abnormal from the first, and if we were to seek to 

 inquire precisely wherein that mental abnormality consisted. With 

 these preliminary remarks we may proceed to note the prevalence 

 among British persons of genius of the undefined conditions com- 

 monly termed '|)reeocity.' 



rt is certainly very considerable. Although we have to make allowance 

 for ignorance in a large proportion of cases, and for neglect to mention 

 llu' fnct ill iiinny more cases, the national ])iographers note that 



