A STUDY OF BRITISH GENIUS. 443 



stitute the temperament of genius show a tendency to resemble each 

 other. 



I shall probably be asked to define precisely what the 'tempera- 

 ment' is that underlies genius. That, however, is a question which the 

 material before us only enables us to approach very cautiously. There 

 are two distinct tendencies among writers on genius. On the one hand 

 are those who seem to assume that genius is a strictly normal variation. 

 This is the standpoint of Galton.* On the other hand are those, chiefly 

 alienists, who assume that genius is fundamentally a pathological 

 condition and closely allied to insanity. This is the position of Lom- 

 broso, who compares genius to a pearl, — so regarding it as a pathological 

 condition, the result of morbid irritation, which by chance has pro- 

 duced a beautiful result, — and who seeks to find the germs of genius 

 among the literary and artistic productions of the inmates of lunatic 

 asylums. 



It can scarcely be said that the course of our investigation, uncer- 

 tain as it may sometimes appear, has led to either of these conclusions. 

 On the one hand, we have found along various lines the marked prev- 

 alence of conditions which can scarcely be said to be consonant with a 

 normal degree of health or the normal conditions of vitality; on the 

 other hand, it cannot be said that we have seen any ground to infer 

 that there is any general connection between genius and insanity, or 

 that genius tends to proceed from families in which insanity is prev- 

 alent; for while it is certainly true that insanity occurs with remark- 

 able frequency among men of genius, it is very rare to find that 

 periods of intellectual ability are combined with periods of insanity, 

 and it is, moreover, notable that (putting aside senile forms of in- 

 sanity) the intellectual achievements of those eminent men in whom 

 unquestionable insanity has occurred have rarely been of a very high 

 order. We cannot, therefore, regard genius either as a purely healthy 

 variation occurring within normal limits nor yet as a radically path- 

 ological condition, not even as an alternation — a sort of allotropic 

 form — of insanity. We may rather regard it as a very highly sensitive 

 and complexly developed adjustment of the nervous system along 

 special lines, with concomitant tendency to defect along other lines. Its 

 elaborate organization along special lines is built up on a basis even 

 less highly organized than that of the ordinary average man. It is no 

 paradox to say that the real affinity of genius — and I am now speaking 

 of the highest manifestations of human intellect, of genius in so far as 

 it can be distinguished from talent — is with congenital imbecility 

 rather than with insanity. If indeed we consider the matter well we 

 see that it must be so. The organization that is well adapted for adjust- 



* In the preface to the second edition of 'Hereditary Genius' Galton has 

 somewhat modified this view. 



