41 ] ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF DATA ^i 



exists) I take to be chiefly the spiritual disorganization incident 

 to a time of rather sudden transition. . . . No matter how 

 gifted an individual may be, he is in no way apart from his 

 time, but has to take that and make the best of it he can ; the 

 man of genius is in one point of view only a twig upon which 

 a mature tendency bears its perfect fruit. . . . Any ripe de- 

 velopment of productive power in literary or other art implies 

 not merely capable individuals but the perfection of a social 

 group, whose traditions and spirit the individual absorbs, and 

 which floats him up to a point whence he can reach unique 

 achievement. The unity of this group or type is spiritual, 

 not necessarily local or temporal, and so may be difficult to 

 trace, but its reality is as sure as the principle that man is a 

 social being and cannot think sanely and steadfastly except 

 in some sort of sympathy with his fellows. There must be 

 others whom we can conceive as sharing, corroborating and 

 enhancing our ideals, and to no one is such association more 

 necessary than to the man of genius. ... no doubt such 

 questions afford ground for infinite debate, but the under- 

 lying principle that the thought of every man is one with 

 that of a group, visible or invisible, is sure, I think, to prove 

 sound; and if so it is indispensable that a great capacity 

 should find access to a group whose ideals and standards are 

 of a sort to make the most of it.^ 



Among other significant facts in the history of American 

 letters which seem to be explained in the light of this 

 proposition better than by either the theory of Galton or of 

 Ward there are seven which are particularly worthy of 

 notice. The first appears in Table III. From this table it is 

 evident that from colonial times to the period at which this 

 study ended, there was a fairly steady decline in the pro- 

 portion of literati of superior achievement, called men of 

 talent. It seems probable that the same influences which 



^ Cooley, Social Organization, pp. 162 et seq. 



