Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 93, Number 158, 30 July 1897 — Genius and Stature. [ARTICLE]

Genius and Stature.

We may safely conclude from the figures that the faith cherished by many, that nearly all great men are little — a very venerable faith, as indicated by the ancient sayings collected in Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy" concerning great wits —is absolutely incorrect. Some deduction must doubtless be made in view of the fact that our medium is made on the basis of the general population, while the majority of men of genius belong to the edu-

cated classes. This deduction would tend to equalize the two extremes; but that it would destroy' the slight preeminence of the tall men of ability is perhaps indicated by the fact shown by the Anthropometric Committee, that the stature of ninety-eight Fellows of the Royal Society (who from the present point of view may be counted as men of genius) was nearly half an inch alx>ve that of the professional class to which they usually belong. At the same time it is clear that the belief in the small size of great men was not absolutely groundless. There is an abnormally large proportion of small "great men." It is mediocrity alone that genius seems to abhor. While among the ordinary population the vast majority of 68 per cent, was of middle hight, among men of genius, so far as the present investigation goes, they are only 22 per cent., the tall being 41 per cent, instead of 16, and the short 37 instead of 16. * * *

The final result is, therefore, not that persons of extraordinary mental ability tend either to be taller or shorter than the average population, but rather that they tend to exhibit an unusual tendency to variation. Even in physical structure, men of genius present a characteristic which on other grounds we may take to be fundamental in them; they are manifestations of the variational tendency, of a physical and psychic variational diathesis. * * *

There are certainly at least two types of short men of genius—the slight, frail, but fairly symmetrical type (approaching what is called the true dwarf), and the type of the stunted giant (a type also to be found among dwarfs proper). The former are fairly symmetrical, but fragile; generally with little physical vigor or health, all their energy being

concentrated in the brain. Kant, was of this type. The stunted giants are usually more vigorous, but lacking in symmetry. Far from being delicately diminutive persons, they suggest tall persons who have been cut short below; in such the brain and viscera seem to flourish at the expense of the limbs, and while abnormal they often have the good fortune to be robust both in mind and body. Lord Chesterfield was a man of this type, short for his size, thick-set, "with a head big enough for a Polyphemus"; Hartley Coleridge carried the same type to the verge of caricature, possessing a large head, a sturdy and ample form, with ridiculously small arms and legs, so that he was said to be "indescribably elfish and grotesque." Dryden — "Poet Squab"—was again of this type, as was William Godwin; in Keats the abnormally short legs coexisted with a small head. The typical stunted giant has a large head; and such stunting of the body has, indeed, a special tendency to produce large heads, and therefore doubtless those large brains which are usually associated with extraordinary Intellectual power.—Havelock Ellis, in July Nineteenth Century.