Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/616

 598 a full and accurate account of the intellectual and moral idiosyncrasy. For, on the one side, there is the inability of parents, etc., to recognize the marks of natural distinction. But few gifted children have been privileged to have their sayings and doings observed and treasured like Clerk-Maxwell or Rowan Hamilton. On the other side, something in the way of overstatement must probably be set down to the exaggerative influence of family affection, and also, perhaps, to the action of the mythopœic impulse in endowing those who have attained greatness with a worthy origin in the shape of a distinguished childhood.

Since these two sources of error tend in opposite directions—to an underestimate and to an overestimate of the indications of precocity—we may perhaps assume that they roughly counterbalance one another. And, so far as there is any appreciable residual error, it would seem to be in the direction of understatement of the case.

We may now inquire into the meaning of our figures, and the conclusions to be drawn from them.

A glance at our different lists will show that throughout precocity preponderates. This will be made more apparent by the following figures: Taking the seven lists together, I find that of the cases examined 231 out of 287, or about four fifths, displayed talent before the age of twenty. The instances of those who gave no sign of their high destiny in their youth must accordingly be regarded as exceptions to the general rule.

I may add that these exceptions, or, to be more accurate, these apparent exceptions, include only one or two names of the first magnitude. I doubt, indeed, whether one could find in the lists of musicians, artists, and poets, a single clear instance of a man of supreme genius having failed to give these early indications.

In the second place, our inquiries teach us that in the large majority of cases the productive period of genius begins early. Thus, in a total of 263 cases, 105—i. e., just two fifths—are known to have produced works before twenty; or 211—or more than fourth fifths—before thirty. At the same time these figures plainly show that there is less uniformity in this particular than in the other.

In the third place, we gather from our investigations that a large majority of great men gain their first considerable success in early manhood. Thus, out of 258 cases, 101, or nearly two fifths, reach this point before twenty-five; and 155—in all about three fifths—before thirty. But the proportion of exceptions becomes decidedly larger here. Thus we have thirty-one instances, or nearly one eighth of the whole, only attaining distinction after forty. And among these are names of very high, if not the highest, eminence.

It follows that there is only a general and not a perfect consilience with respect to the different marks of precocity here selected. The