eminent "epileptics" we fail to find the one man of distinguished
genius whom perhaps we are justified in regarding as a true epileptic.
Dostoievsky appears to have been an epileptic from an early age; he
remained liable to epileptic fits throughout life, and they plunged him
into mental dejection and confusion. In many of his novels we find
pictures of the epileptic temperament, evidently based on personal
experience, showing the most exact knowledge and insight into all the
phases of the disease. Moreover, Dostoievsky in his own person appears
to have displayed the perversions and the tendency to mental
deterioration which we should expect to find in a true epileptic. So
far as our knowledge goes, he really seems to stand alone as a
manifestation of supreme genius combined with epilepsy. Yet, as Dr.
Loygue remarks in his medico-psychological study of the great Russian
novelist, epilepsy only accounts for half of the man, and leaves
unexplained his passion for work; "the dualism of epilepsy and genius
is irreducible."
There is one other still more recent man of true genius, though not of
the highest rank, who may possibly be counted as epileptic: Vincent van
Gogh, the painter.[5] A brilliant and highly original artist, he was a
definitely abnormal man who cannot be said to have escaped mental
deterioration. Simple and humble and suffering, recklessly sacrificing
himself to help others, always in trouble, van Gogh had many points of
resemblance to Dostoievsky. He has, indeed, been compared to the
"Idiot" immortalised by Dostoievsky, in some aspects an imbecile, in
some aspects a saint. Yet epilepsy no more explains the genius of van
Gogh than it explains the genius of Dostoievsky.
Thus the impression we gain when, laying aside prejudice, we take a
fairly wide and impartial survey of the facts, or even when we
investigate in detail the isolated facts to which significance is most
often attached, by no means supports the notion that genius springs
entirely, or even mainly, from insane and degenerate stocks. In some
cases, undoubtedly, it is found in such stocks, but the ability
displayed in these cases is rarely, perhaps never, of any degree near
the highest. It is quite easy to point to persons of a certain
significance, especially in literature and art, who, though themselves
sane, possess many near relatives who are highly neurotic and sometimes
insane. Such cases, however, are far from justifying any confident
generalisations concerning the intimate dependence of genius on
insanity.
We see, moreover, that to conclude that men of genius are rarely or
never the offspring of a radically insane parentage is not to assume
that the parents of men of genius are usually of average normal
constitution. That would in any case be improbable. Apart from the
tendency to convergent heredity already emphasised, there is a wider
tendency to slight abnormality, a minor degree of inaptness for
ordinary life in the parentage of genius. I found that in 5 per cent.
cases (certainly much below the real mark) of the British people of
genius, one parent, generally the father, had shown abnormality from a
social or parental point of view. He had been idle, or extravagant, or
restless, or cruel, or intemperate, or unbusinesslike, in the great
majority of these cases "unsuccessful." The father of Dickens
(represented by his son in Micawber), who was always vainly expecting
something to turn up, is a good type of these fathers of genius.
Shakespeare's father may have been of much the same sort. George
Meredith's father, again, who was too superior a person for the
outfitting business he inherited, but never succeeded in being anything
else, is another example of this group of fathers of genius. The father
in these cases is a link of transition between the normal stock and its
brilliantly abnormal offshoot. In this transitional stage we see, as it
were, the stock _reculer pour mieux sauter_, but it is in the son that
the great leap is made manifest.
This peculiarity will serve to indicate that in a large proportion of
cases the parentage of genius is not entirely sound and normal. We must
dismiss absolutely the notion that the parents of persons of genius
tend to exhibit traits of a grossly insane or nervously degenerate
character. The evidence for such a view is confined to a minute
proportion of cases, and even then is usually doubtful. But it is
another matter to assume that the parentage of genius is absolutely
normal, and still less can we assert that genius always springs from
entirely sound stocks. The statement is sometimes made that all
families contain an insane element. That statement cannot be accepted.
There are many people, including people of a high degree of ability,
who can trace no gross mental or nervous disease in their families,
unless remote branches are taken into account. Not many statistics
bearing on this point are yet available. But Jenny Roller, in a very
thorough investigation, found at Zurich in 1895 that "healthy" people
had in 28 per cent. cases directly, and in 59 per cent. cases
indirectly and altogether, a neuropathic heredity, while Otto Diem in
1905 found that the corresponding percentages were still higher--33 and
69. It should not, therefore, be matter for surprise if careful
investigation revealed a traceable neuropathic element at least as
frequent as this in the families which produce a man of genius.
It may further, I believe, be argued that the presence of a neuropathic
element of this kind in the ancestry of genius is frequently not
without a real significance. Aristotle said in his _Poetics_ that
poetry demanded a man with "a touch of madness," though the ancients,
who frequently made a similar statement to this, had not our modern
ideas of neuropathic heredity in their minds, but merely meant that
inspiration simulated insanity. Yet "a touch of madness," a slight
morbid strain, usually neurotic or gouty, in a preponderantly robust
and energetic stock, seems to be often of some significance in the
evolution of genius; it appears to act, one is inclined to think, as a
kind of ferment, leading to a process out of all relation to its own
magnitude. In the sphere of literary genius, Milton, Flaubert, and
William Morris may help to illustrate this precious fermentative
influence of a minor morbid element in vitally powerful stocks. Without
some such ferment as this the energy of the stock, one may well
suppose, might have been confined within normal limits; the rare and
exquisite flower of genius, we know, required an abnormal stimulation;
only in this sense is there any truth at all in Lombroso's statement
that the pearl of genius develops around a germ of disease. But this is
the utmost length to which the facts allow us to go in assuming the
presence of a morbid element as a frequent constituent of genius. Even
then we only have one of the factors of genius, to which, moreover,
undue importance cannot be attached when we remember how often this
ferment is present without any resultant process of genius. And we are
in any case far removed from any of those gross nervous lesions which
all careful guardianship of the race must tend to eliminate.
Thus we are brought back to the point from which we started. Would
eugenics stamp out genius? There is no need to minimise the fact that a
certain small proportion of men of genius have displayed highly morbid
characters, nor to deny that in a large proportion of cases a slightly
morbid strain may with care be detected in the ancestry of genius. But
the influence of eugenic considerations can properly be brought to bear
only in the case of grossly degenerate stocks. Here, so far as our
knowledge extends, the parentage of genius nearly always escapes. The
destruction of genius and its creation alike elude the eugenist. If
there is a tendency in modern civilisation towards a diminution in the
manifestations of genius--which may admit of question---it can scarcely
be due to any threatened elimination of corrupt stocks. It may perhaps
more reasonably be sought in the haste and superficiality which our
present phase of urbanisation fosters, and only the most robust genius
can adequately withstand.
[1] A Danish alienist, Lange, has, however, made an attempt on a
statistical basis to show a connection between mental ability and mental
degeneracy. (F. Lange, _Degeneration in Families_, translated from the
Danish, 1907). He deals with 44 families which have provided 428 insane
or neuropathic persons within a few generations, and during the same
period a large number also of highly distinguished members, Cabinet
ministers, bishops, artists, poets, etc. But Lange admits that the forms
of insanity found in these families are of a slight and not severe
character, while it is clear that the forms of ability are also in most
cases equally slight; they are mostly "old" families, such as naturally
produce highly-trained and highly placed individuals. Moreover, Lange's
methods and style of writing are not scientifically exact, and he fails
to define precisely what he means by a "family." His investigation
indicates that there is a frequent tendency for men of ability to belong
to families which are not entirely sound, and that is a conclusion which
is not seriously disputed.
[2] Havelock Ellis, _A Study of British Genius_, 1904.
[3] Dr. Cabanès (_Indiscrétions de l'Histoire_, 3rd series) similarly
concludes that, while in temperament Napoleon may be said to belong to
the epileptic class, he was by no means an epileptic in the ordinary
sense. Kanngiesser (_Prager Medizinische Wochenschrift_, 1912, No. 27)
suggests that from his slow pulse (40 to 60) Napoleon's attacks may have
originated in the heart and vessels.
[4] Genuine epilepsy usually comes on before the age of twenty-five; it
very rarely begins after twenty-five, and never after thirty. (L.W.
Weber, _Münchener Medizinische Wochenschrift_, July 30th and Aug. 6th,
1912.) In genuine epilepsy, also, loss of consciousness accompanies the
fits; the exceptions to this rule are rare, though Audenino, a pupil of
Lombroso, who sought to extend the sphere of epilepsy, believes that
the exceptions are not so rare as is commonly supposed (_Archivio di
Psichiatria_, fasc. VI., 1906). Moreover, true epilepsy is accompanied
by a progressive mental deterioration which terminates in dementia; in
the Craig Colony for Epileptics of New York, among 3,000 epileptics
this progressive deterioration is very rarely absent (_Lancet_, March
1st, 1913); but it is not found in the distinguished men of genius who
are alleged to be epileptic. Epileptic deterioration has been
elaborately studied by MacCurdy, _Psychiatric Bulletin_, New York,
April, 1916.
[5] See, _e.g._, Elizabeth du Quesne van Gogh, _Personal Recollections
of Vincent van Gogh_, p. 46. These epileptic attacks are, however, but
vaguely mentioned, and it would seem that they only appeared during the
last years of the artist's life.
XIV
THE PRODUCTION OF ABILITY
The growing interest in eugenics, and the world-wide decline in the
birth-rate, have drawn attention to the study of the factors which
determine the production of genius in particular and high ability in
general. The interest in this question, thus freshly revived and made
more acute by the results of the Great War, is not indeed new. It is
nearly half a century since Galton wrote his famous book on the heredity
of genius, or, as he might better have described the object of his
investigation, the heredity of ability. At a later date my own _Study of
British Genius_ collectively summarised all the biological data available
concerning the parentage and birth of the most notable persons born in
England, while numerous other studies might also be named.
Such investigations are to-day acquiring a fresh importance, because,
while it is becoming realised that we are gaining a new control over the
conditions of birth, the production of children has itself gained in
importance. The world is no longer bombarded by an exuberant stream of
babies, good, bad, and indifferent in quality, with Mankind to look on
calmly at the struggle for existence among them. Whether we like it or
not, the quantity is relatively diminishing, and the question of quality
is beginning to assume a supreme significance. What are the conditions
which assure the finest quality in our children?
A German scientist, Dr. Vaerting, of Berlin, published on the eve of
the War a little book on the most favourable age in parents for the
production of children of ability (_Das günstigste elterliche
Zeugungsalter_).[1] He approaches the question entirely in this new
spirit, not as a merely academic topic of discussion, but as a practical
matter of vital importance to the welfare of society. He starts with the
assertion that "our century has been called the century of the child,"[2]
and for the child all manner of rights are now being claimed. But the
prime right of all, the right of the child to the best ability that his
parents are able to transmit to him, is never even so much as considered.
Yet this right is the root of all children's rights. And when the
mysteries of procreation have been so far revealed as to enable this
right to be won, we shall, at the same time, Dr. Vaerting adds, renew
the spiritual aspect of the nations.
The most easily ascertainable and measurable factor in the production of
ability, and certainly a factor which cannot be without significance, is
the age of the parents at the child's birth. It is this factor with which
Vaerting is mainly concerned, as illustrated by over one hundred German
men of genius concerning whom he has been able to obtain the required
data. Later on, he proposes to extend the inquiry to other nations.
Vaerting finds--and this is probably the most original, though, as we
shall see, not the most unquestionable of his findings--that the
fathers who are themselves of no notable intellectual distinction have
a decidedly more prolonged power of procreating distinguished children
than is possessed by distinguished fathers. The former, that is to say,
may become the fathers of eminent children from the period of sexual
maturity up to the age of forty-three or beyond. When, however, the
father is himself of high intellectual distinction, Vaerting finds that
he was nearly always under thirty, and usually under twenty-five years
of age at his distinguished son's birth, although the proportion of
youthful fathers in the general population is relatively small. The
eleven youngest fathers on Vaerting's list, from twenty-one to
twenty-five years of age, were (with one exception) themselves more or
less distinguished, while the fifteen oldest, from thirty-nine to sixty
years of age, were all without exception undistinguished. Among these
sons are to be found much greater names (Goethe, Bach, Kant, Bismarck,
Wagner, etc.) than are to be found among the sons of young and more
distinguished fathers, for here there is only one name (Frederick the
Great) of the same calibre. The elderly fathers belonged to large
cities and were mostly married to wives very much younger than
themselves. Vaerting notes that the most eminent geniuses have most
frequently been the sons of fathers who were not engaged in
intellectual avocations at all, but earned their livings as simple
craftsmen. He draws the conclusion from these data that strenuous
intellectual energy is much more unfavourable than hard physical labour
to the production of ability in the offspring. Intellectual workers,
therefore, he argues, must have their children when young, and we must
so modify our social ideals and economic conditions as to render this
possible. That the mother should be equally young is not, he holds,
necessary; he finds some superiority, indeed, provided the father is
young, in somewhat elderly mothers, and there were no mothers under
twenty-three. The rarity of genius among the offspring of distinguished
parents is attributed to the unfortunate tendency to marry too late,
and Vaerting finds that the distinguished men who marry late rarely
have any children at all. Speaking generally, and apart from the
production of genius, he holds that women have children too early,
before their psychic development is completed, while men have children
too late, when they have already "in the years of their highest psychic
generative fitness planted their most precious seed in the mud of the
street."
The eldest child was found to have by far the best chance of turning
out distinguished, and in this fact Vaerting finds further proof of
his argument. The third son has the next best chance, and then the
second, the comparatively bad position of the second being attributed
to the too brief interval which often follows the birth of the first
child. He also notes that of all the professions the clergy come
beyond comparison first as the parents of distinguished sons (who are,
however, rarely of the highest degree of eminence), lawyers following,
while officers in the army and physicians scarcely figure at all.
Vaerting is inclined to see in this order, especially in the
predominance of the clergy, the favourable influence of an unexhausted
reserve of energy and a habit of chastity on intellectual
procreativeness. This is one of his main conclusions.
It so happens that in my own _Study of British Genius_, with which Dr.
Vaerting was unacquainted when he made his first investigation, I dealt
on a larger scale, and perhaps with somewhat more precise method, with
many of these same questions as they are illustrated by English genius.
Vaerting's results have induced me to re-examine and to some extent to
manipulate afresh the English data. My results, like Dr. Vaerting's,
showed a special tendency for genius to appear in the eldest child,
though there was no indication of notably early marriage in the
parents.[3] I also found a similar predominance of the clergy among the
fathers and a similar deficiency of army officers and physicians. The
most frequent age of the father was thirty-two years, but the average
age of the father at the distinguished child's birth was 36.6 years,
and when the fathers were themselves distinguished their age was not,
as Vaerting found in Germany, notably low at the birth of their
distinguished sons, but higher than the general average, being 37.5
years. There have been fifteen distinguished English sons of
distinguished fathers, but instead of being nearly always under thirty
and usually under twenty-five, as Vaerting found in Germany, the
English distinguished father has only five times been under thirty and
among these five only twice under twenty-five. Moreover, precisely the
most distinguished of the sons (Francis Bacon and William Pitt) had the
oldest fathers and the least distinguished sons the youngest fathers.
I made some attempt to ascertain whether different kinds of genius
tend to be produced by fathers who were at different periods of life.
I refrained from publishing the results as I doubted whether the
numbers dealt with were sufficiently large to carry any weight. It
may, however, be worth while to record them, as possibly they are
significant. I made four classes of men of genius: (1) Men of
Religion, (2) Poets, (3) Practical Men, and (4) Scientific Men and
Sceptics. (It must not, of course, be supposed that in this last group
all the scientific men were sceptics, or all the sceptics scientific.)
The average age of the fathers at the distinguished son's birth was,
in the first group, 35 years, in the second and third groups 37 years,
and in the last group 40 years. (It may be noted, however, that the
youngest father of all in the history of British genius, aged sixteen,
produced Napier, who introduced logarithms.) It is difficult not to
believe that as regards, at all events, the two most discrepant
groups, the first and last, we here come on a significant indication.
It is not unreasonable to suppose that in the production of men of
religion, in whose activity emotion is so potent a factor, the
youthful age of the father should prove favourable, while for the
production of genius of a more coldly intellectual and analytic type
more elderly fathers are demanded. If that should prove to be so, it
would become a source of happiness to religious parents to have their
children early, while irreligious persons should be advised to delay
parentage. It is scarcely necessary to remark that the age of the
mothers is probably quite as influential as that of the fathers.
Concerning the mothers, however, we always have less precise
information. My records, so far as they go, agree with Vaerting's for
German genius, in indicating that an elderly mother is more likely to
produce a child of genius than a very youthful mother. There were only
fifteen mothers recorded under twenty-five years of age, while
thirteen were over thirty-nine years; the most frequent age of the
mothers was twenty-seven. On all these points we certainly need
controlling evidence from other countries. Thus, before we insist with
Vaerting that an elderly mother is a factor in the production of
genius, we may recall that even in Germany the mothers of Goethe and
Nietzsche were both eighteen at their distinguished sons' birth. A
rule which permits of such tremendous exceptions scarcely seems to
bear the strain of emphasis.
It must always be remembered that while the study of genius is highly
interesting, and even, it is probable, not without significance for the
general laws of heredity, we must not too hastily draw conclusions from
it to bear on practical questions of eugenics. Genius is rare and
abnormal; laws meant to apply to the general population must be based
on a study of the general population. Vaerting, who is alive to the
practical character which such problems are to-day assuming, realises
how inadequate it is to confine our study to genius. Marro, in his
valuable book on puberty, some years ago brought forward interesting
data showing the result of the age of the parents on the moral and
intellectual characters of school-children in North Italy. He found
that children with fathers below twenty-six at their birth showed the
maximum of bad conduct and the minimum of good; they also yielded the
greatest proportion of children of irregular, troublesome, or lazy
character, but not of really perverse children who were equally
distributed among fathers of all ages. The largest number of cheerful
children belonged to young fathers, while the children tended to become
more melancholy with ascending age of the fathers. Young fathers
produced the largest proportion of intelligent, as well as of
troublesome children, but when the very exceptionally intelligent
children were considered separately they were found to be more usually
the offspring of elderly fathers. As regards the mothers, Marro found
that the children of young mothers (under twenty-one) are superior,
both as regards conduct and intelligence, though the more exceptionally
intelligent children tended to belong to more mature mothers. When the
parents were both in the same age-group the immature and the elderly
groups tended to produce more children who were unsatisfactory, both as
regards conduct and intelligence, than the intermediate group.[4]