THE PSYCHOLOGY OF GENIUS. (continued 2)
Reading edition
Chemists analyze different kinds of substances, and show that all contain precisely the same elements; so that no two substances differ, except in the proportions of their elementary constituents. It is just as scientifically established that in all men precisely the same psychical elements occur, and that these may exist in any one proportion as well as in any other. Mood, fancy, intellectual function, memory, ideation, apprehension, etc., are characters present in every man, and into them psychological analysis dissects every man’s faculties, whether he be a genius or whether he be an ordinary man.
The purpose of these researches and of the conclusions to which they lead will become apparent in the following chapter. Psychiatrists have of late been much interested in genius; but before I could discuss the questions which have been mooted, it seemed incumbent upon me to ascertain what is meant by genius. Was it a psychologically definite condition, or was it a loose name for a promiscuous bundle of phenomena? Having, in what precedes, expressed my opinion upon this, I now proceed to the principal question.