Children Above 180 IQ Stanford-Binet: Origin and Development

by Leta Stetter Hollingworth

PREFACE

This study is founded upon the work of Francis Galton, on the one hand, and of Albert Binet, on the other. It goes back to Galton's Hereditary Genius, read as a prescribed reference in the courses of Professor Edward L. Thorndike, in 1912; and to the publication in 1916 of Professor Lewis M. Terman's Stanford Revision of the Binet-Simon Scale for Measuring Intelligence. It comprises observations, measurements, and conversations covering a period of twenty-three years, during which acquaintanceships and friendships, every one of them delightful, have been formed and maintained with the twelve individuals who form the basis of the study.

It was in November, 1916, shortly after taking appointment as instructor in educational psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University, that I saw for the first time a child testing above 180 IQ (S-B). I was teaching a course in the psychology of mentally deficient children, and it seemed to me that my class should if possible observe under test conditions one bright child for the sake of contrast. Accordingly, I asked whether any teacher present could nominate a very intelligent pupil for demonstration.

Miss Charlotte G. Garrison and Miss Agnes Burke, teachers in the Horace Mann School, Teachers College, New York City, thereupon nominated the child who is called E in this monograph. E was presented at the next meeting of the class. It required two full classroom periods to test this child to the limits of the Stanford-Binet Scale, which had just then been published. E exhausted the scale without being fully measured by it, achieving an IQ of at least 187. He was on that date 8 years 4 months old.

This IQ of at least 187 placed E in Galton's Class X of able persons; i.e., more than six "grades" removed from mediocrity. Taking 1 PE#dis# as one "grade," it placed him at least plus 11 PE from the norm; for 1 PE (Probable Error) equals 8 IQ, according to Terman's original distribution of 905 school children. [1] This appeared as sufficiently striking to warrant permanent recording, since it would rate E as one in a million for statistical frequency, assuming "zeal and power of working" to be also abundantly present.

I did not at that time have any expert knowledge of highly intelligent children. I had been working for some years in the hospitals of New York City with persons presented for commitment to reformatories, prisons, and institutions for mental defectives. I had tested thousands of incompetent persons, a majority of them children, with Goddard's Revision of the Binet-Simon Scale, scarcely ever finding anyone with an IQ rating as high as 100. This thoroughgoing experience of the negative aspects of intelligence rendered the performance of E even more impressive to me than it would otherwise have been. I perceived the clear and flawless working of his mind against a contrasting background of thousands of dull and foolish minds. It was an unforgettable observation.

I then began to look for children like E, to observe them with reference to the principles of education. This search has been conducted in a desultory manner, in "odd" moments, ever since 1916. At times, as in 1922-1923 and in 1935-1936, when pupils were being sought for special classes at Public School 165, Manhattan, or at Public School 500, Manhattan, the search has been systematic. Usually, however, the quest has been quite otherwise, for in the course of long searching I have learned that it is nearly useless to look for these children, because so few of them exist. In twenty-three years' seeking in New York City and the local metropolitan area, the densest center of population in this country and at the same time a great intellectual center attracting able persons, I have found only twelve children who test at or above 180 IQ (S-B). This number represents the winnowing from thousands of children tested, hundreds of them brought for the testing because of their mental gifts. Of course there were and are others who have not been found, since [this] search has never been exhaustive.

The most interesting part of this research is yet to come, in the form of a record of the mature performances of these gifted persons observed in childhood. However, I propose to make a report now of origin and development; to be followed, if I live so long, by further reports of adult status. Such researches require more than the life span of one investigator, since time is of the essence of the task. Universities should make provision for institutional prosecution of these long-time studies as distinguished from individual prosecution. In any case, I shall try to leave the records to some younger student who will comprehend them, and who will amplify them if I prove unable to do so myself.

Galton, in his efforts to understand ability, was limited to the study of the eminent adult, dead and gone. The only test he could use was that of reputation, for at the time he was at work on the problem, mental measurement had not yet been developed as a technique. He wished for a more valid method of gauging ability, and he fully realized that it would be of greater advantage to study "the living individual." "Is reputation a fair test of natural ability?" he asked. "It is the only one I can employ . . . am I justified in using it? How much of a man's success is due to his opportunities, and how much to his natural power of intellect?"

Galton's work was finished before Binet's studies made it possible to measure natural ability apart from reputation; and what is most essential of all, to measure natural ability in childhood. It was Binet's great and original service that he rendered it possible to determine accurately the permanent intellectual caliber of an undeveloped human being. It has always been possible to appraise the ability of people forty or fifty years old, after they have met "the tests of life," but for the pursuit of education and social science it is not very practically useful to know what a person is like only at the end of his life. It is essential, rather, to know with a high degree of precision and certainty the mental endowment of persons at the beginning of their lives if anything is to be done in the matter of special training for special children.

The facts derived from the study of the twelve exceptional persons herein described, and from the study of others like them, and the principles deduced from these facts, are of that order of importance for social science which Galton ascribed to them. Nevertheless, to hear of the tremendous differences between the dullest and the most intelligent individual, between the average man and the person who falls more than +10 PE away from him in mental ability, is extremely tedious to the typical American listener. This is only too well known to one who has long tried to interest foundations and moneyed persons in the education of gifted children. There is an apparent preference among donors for studying the needs and supporting the welfare of the weak, the vicious, and the incompetent, and a negative disregard of the highly intelligent, leaving them to "shift for themselves."

Perhaps a wider dissemination of facts such as have been adduced in the studies of Professor Lewis M. Terman and other educators, and in this study, may eventually bring about a more constructive point of view, one more conducive to a recognition of national welfare involved in educational plans for the unusual student.

It is desirable in this introduction to make known some of the etiquette and ethics involved in the scientific study of very gifted children. This is a new area in the field of human relationships and the investigator who works within it comes rather frequently upon certain questions of good manners which do not arise in any other field of psychological research.

For instance, persons who test above 180 IQ (S-B) are almost sure to read and recognize in books and articles whatever has been written about them, no matter how anonymously they may have been described. This is true of them even as children. When the book Gifted Children was published, in 1926, Child A, who is described therein as well as in these pages, was thirteen years old. He read the book within two weeks of publication; for, as he said in mentioning the matter to the author, "I go every week to the Public Library and look first at the shelf of new books." The problem always in the foreground is how to present the whole truth about such matters as family history, social-economic status, and character, without invading the privacy of those described and without identifying them to the general public or to curious persons.

Those who test above 180 IQ (S-B) are characterized by a strong desire for personal privacy. They seldom volunteer information about themselves. They do not like to have attention called to their families and homes. They are reluctant to impart information concerning their plans, hopes, convictions, and so forth. The question arises, then, how to avoid presumption; for it is by no means easy for a young person politely to evade an older person who can lay claim to having known one "all one's life."

Thus, in this study, in order to preserve the privacy of those concerned, some items have been omitted from the histories which would have been of interest to students of child psychology. Let it be understood at once, however, that the omissions include nothing discreditable to any of the twelve individuals studied; rather, many of these items are highly creditable. There have been acts of moral courage, acts of skill, and acts of self-sustaining heterodoxy that if told at all should be told only by those who performed the actions. Perhaps autobiographies may some day be written by these persons, telling whatever they may wish to tell.

In the matter of the attitude of people in general toward gifted children, there are, of course, a majority who are kindly and understanding and helpful, but it is a melancholy fact that there are also malicious and jealous people who are likely to persecute those who are formally identified as being unusual. It may prove a handicap rather than a help to a gifted youngster to have been identified in book or article or school as extraordinary. Some of the children herein described have suffered considerably from the malice of ill-mannered persons, even their instructors, who have felt the impulse to "take them down a peg." Specific instances of such persecution can be cited from public prints, and reference will be made to them in the course of this monograph.

It would be of interest to present a photograph of each child herein observed, to show how in personal appearance they are diametrically opposite to the popular stereotype of the highly intelligent child; but photographs would tend to identification.

These questions of what is right and what is wrong, what is permissible and what is forbidden, in reporting the origin and development of the gifted cannot be fully determined here. The policies pursued in this study have been discussed from time to time with gifted children and their parents, and I have been guided by their advice. Everything has been presented that is consistent both with scientific interest and with the preservation of personal privacy. The work as it stands has taken hundreds of hours of the time of these children and of their parents and teachers, over a period of twenty years. They are all very busy people, yet they have given time and energy for tests, measurements, and interviews as requested. It is obvious that without this coöperation no study could have been made.

Leta S. Hollingworth
Teachers College
Columbia University
New York City

[1] EDITORIAL NOTE. The larger and better sampling of subjects tested for the 1937 Stanford Revision showed a wider variability than the 1916 group and indicates that the true PE of the IQ distribution of unselected children is in the neighborhood of 11 IQ points, according to Terman.

[2] All such records have been deposited in the psychological laboratory of Barnard College, Columbia University.

PART I ORIENTATION

CHAPTER ONE THE CONCEPT OF INTELLECTUAL GENIUS

It would be an ambitious project to find and discuss all the definitions of genius that have ever been offered in writing. To do this is beyond our present purpose, which is, rather, to illustrate the various concepts that have been formulated and to take guidance from them in the consideration of children of great ability. It will perhaps be many years before it will be apparent whether the children studied herein are geniuses or not. Perhaps this can never be determined, as the word "genius" may eventually be found to have no meaning that can be agreed upon. All we know about the status of the subjects of the present study is that they test above 180 IQ (S-B) and are thus more than +10 PE removed from mediocrity in general intelligence. [1] It may be possible to arrive at some comparison between their characteristics and performances on the one hand, and the concepts of genius that have been offered on the other.

CONCEPTS OF THE ANCIENTS

The concept of the genius is very ancient. Ovid (12), [2] referring to Caesar and his preparations to complete the conquest of the world, notes the manner in which a genius acts in advance of his years:

Though he himself is but a boy, he wages a war unsuited to his boyish years. Oh, ye of little faith, vex not your souls about the age of the gods! Genius divine outpaces time, and brooks not the tedium of tardy growth. Hercules was still no more than a child when he crushed the serpent in his baby hands. Even in the cradle, he proved himself a worthy son of Jove.

The Greeks called that person's "daemon" which directed and inspired his creative work. Dictionaries refer to the Roman concept of genius as "a spirit presiding over the destiny of a person or a place; a familiar spirit or a tutelary." The genie was one of the powerful nature demons of Arabian and Mohammedan lore, believed to interfere in human affairs and to be sometimes subject to magic control.

Thinkers in any and every field, no matter how remote from that of psychology, have confidently discussed the nature of genius. Philosophers, poets, litterateurs, physicians, physiologists, psychiatrists, anthropometrists, lexicographars, encyclopedists— all have offered definitions, each according to his light. It has been deemed a subject on which anyone might legitimately express an opinion. The result is, as might be expected, an interesting miscellany of contradictions.

DICTIONARY DEFINITIONS

By derivation the word "genius" means to beget or to bring forth, coming from genere, gignere. Samuel Johnson's Dictionary—from which Galton took his point of departure in choosing the word "genius" for the title of his work on ability—defines a genius as "A man endowed with superior faculties."

Funk and Wagnall's Dictionary offers the following definition: "Very extraordinary gifts or native powers, especially as displayed in original creation, discovery, expression, or achievement."

Webster's New International Dictionary defines "genius" as "Extraordinary mental superiority; esp. unusual power of invention or origination of any kind; as, a man of genius."

The Dictionary of Psychology defines "genius" in part in terms of IQ, but at the same time denies the word any special meaning as a recognized scientific term: "Genius—a very superior mental ability, especially a superior power of invention or origination of any kind, or of execution of some special form, such as music, painting, or mathematics. . . . It has no special technical meaning, but has occasionally been defined as equivalent to an intelligence quotient (IQ) of 140 or above."

Generally speaking, then, dictionaries define genius as a superior or superlative degree of intellectual capacity, and avoid claiming it for any concept of an added, different, or abnormal element in human faculty.

CONCEPTS OF GENIUS

As a manifestation of abnormal psychology. A number of thinkers in fields allied to psychology have laid emphasis upon a supposed connection between genius and nervous instability or insanity. This idea is embodied in the statement by Pascal: "L'extrême esprit est voisin de l'extrême folie." Lamartine refers to "la maladie mentale qu'on appelle génie." Lombroso (10) is perhaps the most widely quoted among those who have held or who hold this point of view.

As constituting a different species. The idea has been expressed by thinkers other than professed psychologists—and at times by psychologists themselves—that men of genius are a separate species, partaking of qualities not shared in any degree by persons at large. This concept is at one with that which would regard the idiot and the imbecile as distinct in kind, not in degree only, from the mass of mankind. Genius would thus be not merely more of the same but a different sort altogether. Thus Hirsch (7) specifically declares:

The genius differs in kind from the species, man. Genius can be defined only in terms of its own unique mental and temperamental processes, traits, qualities, and products. Genius is another psychobiological species, differing as much from man, in his mental and temperamental processes, as man differs from the ape.

As a hypertrophied and highly specialized aptitude for specific performance. The thought has been advanced that intellectual genius is a matter of specialization; that the mind of a genius will not, typically, work on all data with superior results, but that it is adapted only or primarily to certain kinds of intellectual performance. In other words, the genius is thought to lack general ability. A recent statement by Carrel (2) seems to express in part at least this theory:

There is also a class of men who, although disharmonious as the criminal and the insane, are indispensable to modern society. They are the men of genius. They are characterized by a monstrous growth of some of their psychological activities. A great artist, a great scientist, a great philosopher, is rarely a great man. He is generally a man of common type, with one side over-developed.

As a combination of traits. Galton (6) thought of genius as that which qualifies a person for eminence, and he believed that achieved eminence must be founded on a combination of no less than three essentials. He wrote:

By natural ability I mean those qualities of intellect and disposition which urge and qualify a man to perform acts that lead to reputation. I do not mean capacity without zeal, nor zeal without capacity, nor even a combination of both of them, without an adequate power of doing a great deal of very laborious work. But I mean a nature which, when left to itself, will, urged by an inherent stimulus, climb the path that leads to eminence, and has strength to reach the summit . . . one which, if hindered or thwarted, will fret and strive until the hindrance is overcome, and it is again free to follow its labour-loving instinct. It is almost a contradiction in terms to doubt that such men will generally become eminent.

Again, Galton says:

We have seen that a union of three separate qualities—intellect, zeal, and power of work—are necessary to raise men from the ranks.

Lehman (9) has recently expressed this same idea, as a result of a statistical study of the most productive years of intellectual workers:

Indeed, it is doubtful that genius is solely the fruit of any single trait. It is the belief of the writer that the fruits of genius are, on the contrary, a function of numerous integers, including both the personal traits of the individual worker, environmental conditions that are not too hostile, and the fortunate combination of both personal traits and external conditions.

As quantitative. Galton (6) was the first to place the study of genius on the basis of quantitative statement, so that comparisons might be made and vertifications be effected. Galton formulated the theory that genius (great natural ability) is nothing more nor less than a very extreme degree in the distribution of a combination of traits—"intellect, zeal, and power of working"— which is shared by all in various "grades" or degrees. Reasoning thus, Galton applied for the first time in human thought the mathematical concepts of probablity to the definition of genius.

Quetelet (13), drawing objects from congeries of known composition, had elaborated the form which the probabilities take of drawing a given combination. This form, with the law of deviation from the average governing it, is now, of course, a commonplace in psychological laboratories, so that it is hard to realize that when Galton made the mental leap from this curve to the abilities of men, no one had ever thought of human minds as "fitting" the curve drawn by Quetelet. Such a "fit" had already been thought of in connection with measurements of physique, and had been demonstrated for measurements of the shrimp (16) and for physical traits of persons. But that "natural ability" should be susceptible to the probability curve and "the curious theoretical law of deviation from an average" as length is among shrimps, or as circumference of the chest is among Scottish soldiers (as shown by Quetelet), was not conceived. With the modern methods of mental measurement it is easy enough to perceive the truth of this. But Galton was working in the dark, entirely without instruments of precision; and his table of frequency "for the classification of men according to their natural gifts" must be regarded as one of the most prescient statements in the history of social science.

Working with the tables devised by Quetelet, Galton proposed the tabular "classification of men according to their natural gifts" shown [below].

CLASSIFICATION OF MEN ACCORDING TO THEIR NATURAL GIFTS

GRADES OF NATURAL NUMBERS OF MEN COMPRISED IN THE SEVERAL GRADES OF NATURAL ABILITY, WHETHER IN RESPECT ABILITY, SEPARATED TO THEIR GENERAL POWERS OR TO SPECIAL APTITUDES BY EQUAL INTERVALS

Below Above Proportionate; In Each Million In Total Male Population of the United Kingdom, Say Average Average viz., One in of the Same Age 15 Millions, of the Undermentioned Ages 20-30 30-40 40-50 50-60 60-70 70-80 a A 4 256,791 651,000 495,000 391,000 268,000 171,000 77,000 b B 6 161,279 409,000 312,000 246,000 168,000 107,000 48,000 c C 16 63,563 161,000 123,000 97,000 66,000 42,000 19,000 d D 64 15,696 39,800 30,300 23,900 16,400 10,400 4,700 e E 413 2,423 6,100 4,700 3,700 2,520 1,600 729 f F 4,300 233 590 450 355 243 155 70 g G 79,000 14 35 27 21 15 9 4 x

All grades All grades below g above G 1,000,000 1 3 2 2 2 0 0

Interpreting this theoretical tabulation, Galton (6) wrote:

It will be seen that more than half of each million is contained in the two mediocre classes a and A; the four mediocre classes a, b, A, B, contain more than four fifths, and the six mediocre classes more than nineteen twentieths of the entire population. Thus, the rarity of commanding ability and the vast abundance of mediocrity is no accident, but follows of necessity from the very nature of these things.

On decscending the scale, we find by the time we have reached f that we are already among the idiots and imbeciles. We have seen that there are 400 idiots and imbeciles to any million of persons living in this country; but that 30 per cent of their number appear to be light cases, to whom the name of idiot is inappropriate. There will remain 280 true idiots and imbeciles to every million of our population. This ratio coincides very closely with the requirements of class f. No doubt a certain proportion of them are idiots owing to some fortuitous cause . . . but the proportion of accidental idiots cannot be very large.

Hence we arrive at the undeniable but unexpected conclusion that eminently gifted men are raised as much above mediocrity as idiots are depressed below it; a fact that is calculated to enlarge considerably our ideas of the enormous difference of intellectual gifts between man and man.

MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS TENDING TO DEFINE CHARACTERISTICS OF GENIUS

In addition to the formulation of the rather definite concepts of genius which have been discussed, there are to be found in the literature of this topic a large number of general observations ascribing certain characteristics to persons of genius. There are also many remarks as to the conditions of living, of education, of genetics, and so forth, which are alleged to foster or to hinder the development of genius. Many of these observations and remarks emanate from others than professed psychologists, some of the most interesting coming from litterateurs and philosophers.

One of the most penetrating discussions of genius by a litterateur is that of Shaw (15) in his Preface to Saint Joan. Shaw regards Saint Joan as a young genius, and in introducing his readers to this point of view he says:

Let us be clear about the meaning of the terms. A genius is a person who, seeing farther and probing deeper than other people, has a different set of ethical values from theirs, and has energy enough to give effect to this extra vision and its valuations in whatever manner best suits his or her specific talents.

Here is brought out the tendency to heterodoxy which characterizes genius and is the source of much of its difficulty. Shaw dwells upon these difficulties in saying:

But it is not so easy for mental giants who neither hate nor intend to injure their fellows to realize that nevertheless their fellows hate mental giants and would like to destroy them, not only enviously because the juxtaposition of a superior wounds their vanity, but quite honestly because it frightens them. Fear will drive men to any extreme; and the fear inspired by a superior being is a mystery which cannot be reasoned away. Being immeasurable it is unbearable when there is no presumption or guarantee of its benevolence and moral responsibility; in other words, when it has official status.

This is the same trend of thought which Mill (11) follows in his Essay on Liberty, noting the originality that characterizes genius and the troubles that result from it, and insisting upon freedom for genius in the interests of the general welfare.

It would not be denied by anybody that originality is a valuable element in human affairs. There is always need of persons not only to discover new truths, and point out when what were once truths are true no longer, but also to commence new practices, and set the example of more enlightened conduct, and better taste and sense in human life. . . . It is true that this benefit is not capable of being rendered by everybody alike; there are but few persons in comparison with the whole of mankind, whose experiments, if adopted by others, would be likely to be any improvement on established practice. But these few are the salt of the earth; without them, human life would become a stagnant pool. . . . Persons of genius, it is true, are and are always likely to be, a small minority; but in order to have them, it is necessary to preserve the soil in which they grow. Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom. Persons of genius are, ex vi termini, more individual than any other people . . . less capable, consequently, of fitting themselves, without hurtful compression, into any of the small number of moulds which society provides in order to save its members the trouble of forming their own character. If from timidity they consent to be forced into one of these moulds, and to let that part of themselves which cannot expand under the pressure remain unexpanded, society will be little better for their genius. If they are of strong character, and break their fetters, they become a mark for the society which has not succeeded in reducing them to common-place, to point with solemn warning as "wild," "erratic," and the like; much as if one should complain of the Niagara River for not flowing smoothly between its banks like a Dutch canal.

Mill says further:

I insist thus emphatically on the importance of genius, and the necessity of allowing it to unfold itself freely both in thought and in practice, being well aware that no one will deny the position in theory, but knowing also that almost everyone, in reality, is totally indifferent to it.

Mill, indeed, had much to say about the conditions under which the exceptional individual contributes to social change and progress, which bears immediately upon the education of highly exceptional children.

Bearing further upon the persecution to which genius is often subject as a penalty for nonconformity, Havelock Ellis (5) after studying a large number of British men of genius says:

It is practically impossible to estimate the amount of persecution to which this group of preëminent persons has been subjected, for it has shown itself in innumerable forms, and varies between a mere passive refusal to have anything to do with them or their work and the active infliction of physical torture and death. There is, however, at least one form of persecution, very definite in character, which it is easy to estimate, since the national biographers have probably in few cases passed over it. I refer to imprisonment. I find that at least 160, or over 16 per cent, of our 975 eminent men were imprisoned, once or oftener, for periods of varying length, while many others only escaped imprisonment by voluntary exile.

This is a conclusion reached by one investigating the condition of genius among what are probably the most liberal people in the world—the British, a nation of protestants.

Another condition of genius frequently alleged is that of personal isolation. Shaw makes Saint Joan say, "I was always alone." Schopenhauer (14) says: "It is often the case that a great mind prefers soliloquy to the dialogue he may have in the world." Hirsch (7) dwells at some length upon isolation:

The genius is constantly forced to solitude, for he early learns from experience that his kind can expect no reciprocation of their generous feelings. . . . Solitude can best be defined as the state in which friends are lacking or absent, rather than as the opposite of sociability. . . . Solitude is but a refuge of genius, not its goal. Time after time one detects, from the lives or writings of genius, that solitude is not its destiny but only a retreat; not the normal fruition of its being, but an empty harbor sheltering it from the tortures, griefs, and calumnies of the world. . . . It is a grievous error to credit the genius with an innate inclination to shun men. But in his youth he learns by experience that solitude is preferable to suffocation, stupefaction, or surrender.

Alger (1) sees isolation as a necessary corollary of the insistence upon perfection and accuracy which characterizes genius:

A passion for perfection will make its subject solitary as nothing else can. At every step he leaves a group behind. And when, at last, he reaches the goal, alas, where are his early comrades?

These references to the early experience of the genius in meeting the uncordial response of the world as constituted, with its resultant tendency to isolation, connect themselves with an account found in the Apocryphal New Testament, in a portion called the Hebrew Gospels.

And Joseph, seeing that the child was vigorous in mind and body, again resolved that he should not remain ignorant of the letters, and took him away, and handed him over to another teacher. And the teacher said to Joseph: I shall teach him the Greek letters, and then Hebrew. He wrote out the alphabet and began to teaching him in an imperious tone, saying: Say Alpha. And he gave him his attention for a long time and he made no answer, but was silent. And he said to him: If thou art really a teacher, tell me the power of the Alpha and I will tell thee the power of the Beta. And the teacher was enraged at this, and struck him.

SPECULATION AND COMMENT CONCERNING GENIUS

The ecology of genius has evoked speculation and comment.
Thus Churchill (3) says:

Mountain regions discourage the budding of genius because they are areas of isolation, confinement, remote from the great currents of men and ieas that move along river valleys. They are regions of much labor and little leisure, of poverty today and anxiety for the morrow, of toil-cramped hands and toil-dulled brains. In the fertile alluvial plains are wealth, leisure, contact with many minds, large urban centers where commodities and ideas are exchanged.

The origins of genius have also engaged the attention of speculative thinkers. For instance, Dixon (4) and also Hirsch (7) offer the hypothesis that racial mixture is an antecedent of genius. Kretschmer (8) would by inference subscribe to this theory, since he holds that genetically genius results from the union of unlike elements, to which he refers as "bastardization":

The investigation of the family history of highly talented individuals demonstrates very clearly the effect of biological "bastardization," and shows why it may lead to the production of genius. . . . It results in a complicated psychological structure, in which the components of two strongly opposing germs remain in polar tension throughout life. . . . This polar tension acts as an effective and dynamic factor and produces in the genius the labile equlibrium, the effective super-pressure, that continuous, restless impulsiveness, which carries him far beyond placid, traditional practice and the simple satisfaction of life. On the other hand, in regard to his intellectual abilities, the polar tension creates in the genius his wide mental horizon, the diverse and complicated wealth of his talent, the all-embracing personality.

Kretschmer also allies himself with those who hold the concept of genius as closely related to insanity, quoting selected cases in proof:

"Bastardization" produces internal contrasts and conflicts, affects tensions, highly strung and uncompensated passions, and a spiritual lability. It consequently creates a predisposition to genius . . . but also [points] to psycho-pathological complications. Thus the research on "bastardization" becomes closely interwoven with the old, familiar questions, leading us back to the problem: "Genius and Insanity."

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. ALGER, WILLIAM. The Genius of Solitude, page 144.

2. CARREL, ALEXIS. Man the Unknown. See pages 140-141. Harper & Brothers, New York; 1935.

3. CHURCHILL, ELLEN SEMPLE. The Influence of Geographic Environment on the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropogeography. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston; 1909.

4. DIXON, ROLAND B. The Racial History of Man. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York; 1923.

5. ELLIS, HAVELOCK. A Study of British Genius. Constable, London; 1927.

6. GALTON, FRANCIS. Hereditary Genius. The Macmillan Company, London; 1914.

7. HIRSCH, N. D. M. Genius and Creative Intelligence. Sci-Art Publisher, Cambridge, Massachusetts; 1931.

8. KRETSCHMER, E. The Psychology of Men of Genius. Translated by R. B. Cattell. Harcourt, Brace & Co., Inc., New York; 1931.

9. LEHMAN, HARVEY C. "The Creative Years in Science and Literature." Scientific Monthly (August, 1936).

10. LOMBROSO, C. The Man of Genius. Scott, London; 1891.

11. MILL, JOHN STUART. Essay on Liberty. See page 76 ff. The Macmillan Company, New York; 1926 Ed.

12. OVIDIUS NASO, PUBLIUS. Ars Amatoria (The Love Books of Ovid). Translated by J. Lewis May. Privately printed for the Rarity Press, New York; 1930.

13. QUETELET, M. Letters on Probability. Translated by Downes. Layton & Co., London; 1849.

14. SCHOPENHAUER, ARTHUR. "Essay on Genius," in The Art of Literature, Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer. Willey Book Company, New York.

15. SHAW, GEORGE BERNARD. Saint Joan. Dodd, Mead, & Co., Inc., New York; 1924, 1936.

16. WELDON, W. F. R. "Certain Correlated Variations in Crangdon Vulgaris," Proceedings of The Royal Society, Vol. 51, page 2 (1892).

[1] See endnote [1] in Preface.

[2] Numbers in parentheses refer to correspondingly numbered references in the Bibliography at the end of each chapter.