take seriously to inquiry. How far this consilience extends with reference to the relative position of the several classes in our scheme I will not now venture to say.
Genius is precocious, then, in the sense of manifesting itself early. But what of its subsequent history? Does it soon attain the summit of its development, or go on improving as long as, or even longer than, ordinary intelligence? This, as was pointed out at the beginning of this essay, is, in a measure, a different inquiry, and one too long to follow out here. There are special difficulties, too, in pursuing this line of research. Although it is, in a general way, an easy matter to say when a man of genius produces his first distinctly original work, it is exceedingly difficult to determine how long he goes on improving. Critics are far from agreed, for example, as to the relative value of the earlier and later work of Goethe, Beethoven, Turner, etc. It may, however, be safely asserted that early manifestation of genius is not incompatible with a prolonged and even late development. Haydn, Beethoven, Michael Angelo, Titian, Milton, Goethe, Voltaire, Gibbon, Lessing, Newton, Leibnitz, Berkeley, Mill, and other great names, are examples of such a lengthy process of development. Indeed, there is much to support Mr. Galton's view that eminent men surpass ordinary men not only in superiority from the first, but also in a more prolonged development.[1]
Such a conclusion, it may be observed, would seem to accord with what we know of the general laws of mental evolution. For, if we compare the different races of man, or the different species of animals, we find that, in general, the higher the cerebral organization attained, the longer the process of development. Men of great original power, having the most highly organized type of brain, may be expected to illustrate the most prolonged movement of mental growth.
From this point of view we are able, I think, to see the difference between the course of development of a truly great intellect, and that of a precocious but stunted intelligence. That there are many clever children that never "come to anything," or, at least, do not fulfill their early promise, is a fact which nobody, probably, will deny. Some of these would perhaps have distinguished themselves if they had had better opportunities, or, at least, more ambition and energy of character. But, allowing for this, one finds a good remainder of youths who appear to have had a rapid but early arrested mental development. Such an early display of quickness, followed by a lengthy period of ordinary mediocrity, or even dullness, looks like a too great forwardness of ordinary human ability. In other words, the clever child is in this case not an exceptional being, but a quite average one, whose cerebral development has somehow outrun the common attainment of his years. He is like a tree that bears fruit too soon. On the other
- ↑ See "Hereditary Genius," p. 44. Mr. Galton has kindly sent me a fuller statement of his view on this point.
