WHAT IS GENIUS?

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 4961, 12 April 1926, Page 3

WHAT IS GENIUS?

VIEWS OF GERMAN SCIENTISTS.

INCOMPATIBLE WITH FEMALES.

A definition of genius was the difficult task attempted by leading Ger’ma,u psychd-analysts at a recent conference. 1

Professor Cohn, the first speaker, premised that genous is incompatible with the female sex. He agreed that there Pad been women of considerable orain power, but said the sex had never produced a genius, and from ip nature never could.

The vital orgaji in the. body of a genius, be added, is, the heart, not the brain. The heart is thei founda,tion of the whole physical st’, ueture the brain a vampire, callously and rapidly consuming the vital .spark of genius.

Not one instance of a genius with a weak hea>rt had been recorded; young men with cairdiac defects were automatically excluded from the number of potential geniuse< Pendulumlike, genius swung between two extremes —the moods! of exaltation and melancholy.

Exaltation was experienced when genius gave expression .to a masterpiece ; melancholy, • a more durable mood, was, due to unachieved ideals, the world’s ha.rshness, man’s indifference, the sense , of loneliness to doubts even a.bou,t the verdict of posterity.

Even (went on the professor) if woman could not herself become a genius she could nevertheless play the lofty role of companion to genius. Men of genius, more, than others, needed women if their lives were to be rounded and complete. Professor • Moll, the next speaker, combated the view that geniuses craved for women’s companionship. A lifetime devoted to the study ,of sex convinced him that there was no jusr tification tor such theories as: that of a highly developed sex instinct in men of genius.