ditions that
produce according to circumstances genius, insanity, and divers nervous
troubles. Every one of these hypotheses can allege facts in its favor.
We must, however, recognize that in most men of genius are found so many
peculiarities, physical eccentricities and disorders of all kinds that
the pathologic theory retains much probability.

There remain for consideration the sane geniuses who, despite many
efforts and subtleties, have not yet been successfully brought under the
foregoing formula, and who have made possible the enunciation of another
theory. Recently, Nordau, rejecting the theory of his master Lombroso,
has maintained that it is just as reasonable to say that "genius is a
neurosis" as that "athleticism is a cardiopathy" because many athletes
are affected with heart disease. For him, "the essential elements of
genius are judgment and will." Following this definition, he establishes
the following hierarchy of men of genius: At the highest rung of the
ladder are those in whom judgment and will are equally powerful; men of
action who make world-history (Alexander, Cromwell, Napoleon)--these are
masters of men. On the second level are found the geniuses of judgment,
with no hyper-development of will--these are masters of matter (Pasteur,
Helmholtz, Roentgen). On the third step are geniuses of judgment without
energetic will--thinkers and philosophers. What then shall we do with
the emotional geniuses--the poets and artists? Theirs is not genius in
the strict sense, "because it creates nothing new and exercises no
influence on phenomena." Without discussing the value of this
classification, without examining whether it is even possible,--since
there is no common measure between Alexander, Pasteur, Shakespeare, and
Spinoza,--and whether, on the other hand, common opinion is not right in
putting on the same level the great creators, whoever they be, solely
because they are far above the average, this remark is absolutely
necessary: In the definition above cited the creative faculty _par
excellence_--imagination--necessary to all inventors, is entirely left
out.

We can, however, derive some benefit from this arbitrary division.
Although it is impossible to admit that "emotional geniuses" create
nothing new and have no influence on society, they do form a special
group. Creative work requires of them a nervous excitability and a
predominance of affective states that rapidly become morbid. In this way
they