62 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



minants of the musical faculty is infinitesimally small ; in the 

 second place, the chance that such a person, if found, would be 

 a female is nil. Thus is it logically and practically impossible 

 for a genius to reproduce a similar genius. To this inference 

 from the simple calculation of probabilities must be added the 

 undoubted fact that genius is often a pathological phenomenon, 

 the brilliant fruit of a degenerate tree ; although the view of 

 Lombroso that the genius is biologically akin to the epileptic is 

 not universally valid. 



But it would be an unjustifiable simplification of matters to 

 suppose that the musical genius, or the philosophical genius, 

 depended for the universal development of his specific talent on 

 the determinants of that specific talent alone. The genius of a 

 Beethoven is not the result of a progressive evolution of the 

 determinants of the musical faculty by themselves ; it is the 

 result of a synthetic and harmonic evolution of a number of 

 different psychical faculties. The genius is necessarily the result 

 of the synthesis of a number of psychological factors ; an indi- 

 vidual otherwise imbecile would never have composed the Ninth 

 Symphony or delivered the discourses of Burke on the French 

 Revolution. General culture of the faculties is essential to the 

 production of genius, which is the product of a co-ordination of 

 different psychical forces. A modification of one of these forces, 

 although seemingly a secondary one, may entail profound 

 modification of the ultimate result. It is far easier to ensure 

 throughout a long line of descendants the continuity of a general 

 standard of culture than to ensure the maintenance of one 

 specific talent at a highly developed degree ; for in the first 

 case it is merely necessary that the parents should always be 

 individuals possessing a certain general culture, whereas in the 

 second case they must possess one specific faculty in an unusual 

 degree. In the first case, the different cultural tendencies of 

 the parents manifest themselves in many and varied forms, 

 and the cultural level of a family may in this way be main- 



