ACCIDENT OF NATURE.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 767, 16 March 1910, Page 10

ACCIDENT OF NATURE.

SCIENTIST ON CAUSATION OF GENIUS. Under the title of "Great Men," Professor Wilhchn Ostwald, winner of this year's Nobel prize for chemistry, has published a remarkable volume npon tho underlying biological and psychological priuciplcs of research, writes the Berlin correspondent of the ""Westminster Gazette." Dr. Ostwald dissects the lives and family history of all the great men of science of modern times, and essays to lay down the general laws under which they attained greatness, and by which they carried on their work. The first question he deals with is: What are the parental, racial, social, and other influences under which great men of science are born? "While affirming emphatically that geniuses are born, I)r. Ustwald denies that genius or great talent, is hereditary, and argues that neither the parents; nor tho brothers and sisters, nor the children of famous 'scientists possessed genius. The birth of a scientific genius is an. accident of nature. , Nearly all great men of science, says Professor Ostwald, spring from the middle classes, the three notable exceptions, Cavendish, Boyle, and Lord Bayleigh, being Englishmen. They very rarely spring from the working classes; and from ,this Dr. Ostwald concludes that it is necessary for a great man of research to start from a cortain cultural level; otherwise he would have to waste too much energy on the attainment of preliminary knowledge. The parents of great scientists are therefore often men who, without being geniuses, have: taken an. interest in science, while not pursuing it as a career. As .regards race, Dr. Ostwald holds that a scientific genius can arise only in a highly civilised race; but he does not think thf.t the age of the civilisation makes any difference,. and points out that science has lately been showing more vigour in Scandinavia than in France and Italy, with their much older culture. The argument' that great men of research are born, not made, is supported by. the fact that ; mostgreat i scientists showed their particular bent of .genius at an early age, and that many made their most important discoveries while quite youpg. Newton, Linnaeus, Helmholtz, and J. B. Meyer are remarkable instances. Accompanying this phenomenon is often the premature decline of scientific genius, so that many men of research who made great discoveries before the age of thirty did little or nothing afterwards. • '

Professor Osfcwald divides nil men of 5r en 5 e • c^ass^c^s t s and romanticists, "he "classicist" works witli . the greatest' pain at the-completion -of and proof of' cach discovery before making use of it, whereas the "romanticist," impelled by too great a rush of ideas, is inclined to publish his ' ideas too soon. Helmholtz and Gauss are given as instances of i classicists, and Liebig as a romanticist., The best teachers of science always be-1 longed to the romantic school.

])r. Oswald concludes by considering the relation of women to science. His attitude is unfavourable. He holds that during the last two or three decades enough women have studied science at universities and high schools to make it a fair test whether they are capable of nrst-class achievements in, the domain of pure science, aind he holds that the answer is negative.